Start with what a reverse centaur is. In automation theory, a “centaur” is a person who is assisted by a machine. You’re a human head being carried around on a tireless robot body. Driving a car makes you a centaur, and so does using autocomplete.
And obviously, a reverse centaur is machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.
Obviously, it’s nice to be a centaur, and it’s horrible to be a reverse centaur. There are lots of AI tools that are potentially very centaur-like, but my thesis is that these tools are created and funded for the express purpose of creating reverse-centaurs, which is something none of us want to be.
The AI can’t do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can’t do your job.
No, I’d missed that one, so thank you very much for the link. It was - as is typical of Doctorow’s musings - a very good read, which I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone else who’re interested.
It’s possible you read this text already, but if you didn’t, Cory Doctorow wrote a great piece about this. Some good excerpts of it that fit really well what you said:
No, I’d missed that one, so thank you very much for the link. It was - as is typical of Doctorow’s musings - a very good read, which I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone else who’re interested.