The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late

The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It's Too Late by Cory Doctorow — Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2026)

An Instant New York Times Bestseller and National Indie Bestseller — from the author of Enshittification

In modern tech parlance, a centaur is a person who is able to use technology to be a better, more productive version of themselves. A reverse centaur is a person who is forced by technology to work at an inhuman pace — a driver made to deliver all day long, nonstop; a warehouse worker made to work without food or bathroom breaks; a programmer made to crank out impossible amounts of code.

This is not another anti-AI screed. Cory Doctorow uses AI in his work every day. As a creative person, he has no moral or dogmatic issue with AI — he thinks the technology is useful, even exciting, and full of potential. And yet. AI has arrived surrounded by unprecedented hype driven by a tech industry desperate to maintain its unprecedented valuation based on its own promises of endless financial growth.

In The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, Doctorow recounts both how we found ourselves in this dire situation and how we can get through it, to a life "after" AI in which the tools work for us, not the other way around. With the same sharp wit and fearless clarity he brought to Enshittification, Doctorow cuts through the noise to give readers a clear-eyed account of what AI actually is, what it isn't, and how ordinary people can think about it before it's too late.

Cory Doctorow is a New York Times-bestselling science fiction author, activist, and journalist. Born in Toronto, Canada, he lives in Los Angeles and London.