Cory Doctorow has written more than 30 books, but is best known for inventing a single word: enshittification. Enshittification was called 2023’s word of the year by the American Dialect Society, and has been officially added to most dictionaries. After coining the word, Doctorow wrote “Enshittification” in 2025. The book took aim at big tech companies such as Meta and Google, arguing for more regulation of the tech sector. It was an instant hit.
Now, Doctorow, a human rights activist, journalist and sci-fi writer, takes on the thorny topic of AI. Like “Enshittification,” his new nonfiction book introduces a term: the “reverse centaur.” The book has a simple thesis in the idea that machines should work for us, not the other way around.
“The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI” is well-researched and well-written, but most importantly, it feels like a book the reader can trust. The tone is conversational; when I pick it up, it feels like I’m meeting Doctorow for coffee. He obfuscates nothing, and he makes it clear whose side he’s on – the side of workers, artists and union members.
Here’s what you need to know before deciding whether to buy a copy.
What’s a reverse centaur?
AI on its own isn’t good or bad, Doctorow argues (with convincing examples such as its use by refugees for translation help, or life-saving car brake technology). What’s most important are the power structures surrounding the technology: Who it is for, and who it’s forced upon.
To explain this central thesis statement, Doctorow introduces the metaphor of the reverse centaur. A centaur is a creature from Greek mythology with the body of a horse and the head of a human. For Doctorow, a centaur is a human using technology as a tool. When you use a calculator to calculate a restaurant tip, check the weather forecast, ride a bike or use a spell-checker, you’re a centaur. Crucially, you get to decide how, when and why you use the tool. The technology empowers you, and you retain your agency. Even if you own a calculator, you can still use pencils and paper when you prefer.
A reverse centaur, then, is a human being working on a machine’s terms. Doctorow uses Amazon drivers as a recurring example of reverse centaurs. Amazon drivers are forced to sign into at least nine surveillance apps and are watched constantly by a list of AI trackers. An AI-tracked driver loses performance points by braking, even if they need to brake for their own safety. They are compelled to follow AI-generated routes, even if those routes are hazardous. Amazon drivers are not assisted and empowered by AI tools – they are forced to give up their agency to machines. Other examples of reverse centaurs are software engineers who are compelled by their bosses to double-check impossible amounts of AI-generated code (and who become “accountability sinks” if they miss an error).
The term “reverse centaur” isn’t as immediately, viscerally understandable as “enshittification.” After all, it takes a couple paragraphs to explain. Still, it’s a useful – and appropriately disturbing – mental picture.
Diagnosis without a solution
Doctorow is a genius at breaking down the seemingly complex, deliberately murky dynamics of the AI sector. Using down-to-earth, understandable metaphors, he explains the “very weird math” AI companies use to convince investors of their potential. He gives a strong account of how we got here, and where “here” is.
The book falls shorter, however, on guidance for its readers. If you’re a current law student wondering whether firms will still be hiring humans by the time you graduate, the book won’t tell you what you should do tomorrow. If you’re an artist whose work has been plagiarized by AI, the book doesn’t tell you, step by step, how to fight back. Doctorow does offer some words of wisdom aimed specifically at creative workers: Defend copyright laws and use them to your advantage. This is advice that the average, individual reader will struggle to concretely implement.
Nonetheless, Doctorow’s concise, clear diagnosis of the AI bubble is incredibly valuable. The book is almost too full of good ideas and piercing thesis statements. It’s a book that I had to read slowly, 10 pages at a time, to make sure I was absorbing all of Doctorow’s ideas (and appreciating all his jokes and jabs).
For anyone angry, frustrated or afraid of the AI onslaught, “Reverse Centaur” will be a rewarding investment. The book is simultaneously illuminating, empowering and oddly comforting. AI doesn’t have to unfold like this, Doctorow argues. We need to fight for a world of centaurs, not reverse centaurs.
You’ll come away from the book with a sense of agency, indignation and insight ≠ as long as you read it, instead of asking a chatbot to summarize it.
