‘You can’t make billions without hurting people’: Cory Doctorow on Elon Musk, the AI bubble and bosses’ cruel fantasies
You can t make billions without – In the evolving landscape of automation, a ‘centaur’ is defined as a person who collaborates with a machine to accomplish tasks. But Cory Doctorow, the author of The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, flips this concept on its head. For him, a reverse centaur is not a hybrid of human and machine, but a human who is essentially reduced to a subordinate role in service of an algorithm. This idea, which underpins his latest work, explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping labor and society, often with little regard for the human cost.
The Algorithmic Worker: A New Reality
Doctorow’s vision of reverse centaurs is starkly illustrated by everyday scenarios. Consider the warehouse worker forced to urinate into a water bottle to meet algorithmic fulfillment targets. Or the self-driving truck operator, who earns minimum wages while ensuring the machine doesn’t crash. These examples are not isolated; they are symptoms of a broader trend. From lawyers poring over AI-generated legal analyses to indie musicians covering AI-composed hits, the reverse centaur is becoming the norm. “The future is already here,” Doctorow asserts, “and it’s the relentless march of automation that’s consuming our jobs and autonomy.”
He warns that the promise of AI is not just about efficiency, but about displacement. “We’re told that AI will take over everything, from our work to our livelihoods, and there’s no stopping it,” he says. Yet, the core of his argument lies in the idea that AI’s dominance is a conjuring trick, a carefully constructed illusion. “People imagine AI as a godlike entity, capable of mastering language and making decisions,” he explains. “But what we’re really doing is assigning meaning to a system that has no intentionality.”
“AI people claim they’re about to create God, by teaching words to a word-guessing programme,” Doctorow says. “It’s grandiose.”
Doctorow’s critique extends to the way humans interact with AI. We marvel at its successes—correctly predicting outcomes, generating coherent text—but conveniently overlook its failures. “When AI makes mistakes, we call them hallucinations,” he notes. “That’s a fancy term for errors, but it shifts the blame away from the system itself.” He argues that this tendency to attribute intent to machines is a reflection of our own biases, shaped by a world where we expect creators behind every creation.
Elon Musk and the AI Bubble
The AI bubble, according to Doctorow, is a vast and growing investment phenomenon. When he first wrote the book last year, the market value of AI startups was $700 billion. Now, it’s $1.4 trillion. “The only thing worse than a $1.4tn bubble is a $2.4tn one, which we’re heading for,” he says. This rapid expansion has created a fragile ecosystem, where the potential for collapse is as imminent as the promise of progress.
Doctorow highlights the concentration of power within a few tech giants. Nine American companies account for 35% of the entire stock market valuation, a fact that became evident during the Iran war. “The war had a bigger impact on European and Asian markets than on the US,” he observes. “But the tech sector insulated the market, shielding it from real-world shocks.” This insulation, however, may be an illusion. “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent,” he adds, referencing Keynesian economics.
“Elon Musk has called it the single greatest threat to human civilisation, Sam Altman has said it will ‘most likely lead to the end of the world’ and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, memorably forecast that AI would come to see us the way we see animals: cute to have around but ultimately a resource to be exploited.”
Despite the dire predictions, Doctorow remains skeptical. “AI isn’t going to render us obsolete,” he insists. “It’s a tool that we use to solve problems, but we’re projecting our own ambitions onto it.” He draws a parallel between AI’s rise and the myth of the Promethean fire—something we’ve always been able to create, yet it reshapes our lives in ways we didn’t anticipate. “Consciousness isn’t something we’ve ever been able to define,” he says. “So when people claim AI is becoming conscious, they’re probably just forgetting what consciousness even is.”
A Human-Centric Approach to AI
Doctorow’s work is not just about predicting the future—it’s about preparing for it. His book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI, is a call to action for those who fear the technology’s impact. “We need to understand that AI is a mirror, reflecting our own priorities and fears,” he argues. “It’s not the end of work, but the transformation of it.”
He also points to the cultural and economic shifts AI is driving. “We’re already seeing the consequences of this transformation in the gig economy, where workers are treated as disposable assets,” he says. “The idea that we can make billions without hurting people is a cruel fantasy—one that keeps us complacent while the system redefines labor.”
Doctorow’s perspective is grounded in his experiences as a tech writer and activist. He first gained attention with Enshittification, a book that dissected the erosion of digital services due to profit-driven design. “It’s hard to believe it was published just last year,” he jokes. “And even harder to remember what we did without that word.”
Living between Los Angeles and London, Doctorow often reflects on the global reach of AI’s influence. His British wife, Alice Taylor, runs the BBC’s AI Creative Lab, a hub for exploring the intersection of technology and art. “It’s not ironic,” he says. “It’s just the way things are.”
Ultimately, Doctorow sees AI as a double-edged sword. While it can disrupt entire industries and reshape economies, its impact is not predetermined. “The AI bubble is a warning sign,” he says. “It tells us that we’re investing in a future that may not be as inevitable as we think.”
As the world grapples with the promises and perils of artificial intelligence, Doctorow’s work challenges us to look beyond the headlines. Whether it’s the reverse centaur in the warehouse or the algorithmic masters of the stock market, his message is clear: the future of work is not a fixed endpoint, but a dynamic process—one that demands our attention, our empathy, and our ability to question the narratives we’re told to accept.
