The Enshittification of Everything and What Comes Next
You've felt it. The apps that used to serve you seamlessly no longer do. The platform that once connected you to what you loved now buries it under ads. The service that made your life easier now makes you work harder for it. You weren't imagining it. It has a name: enshittification.
Cory Doctorow coined the term, which the Macquarie Dictionary named Word of the Year in 2024, selected by both the committee's and the people's choice – only the third time that had ever happened. Since then, it has spread far beyond tech circles because it describes something everyone recognises: the deliberate, systematic degradation of the services we depend on once the companies behind them have us locked in. Wikipedia
And now the same logic is coming for work itself.
In automation theory, a centaur is a person who is assisted by a machine: a human head on a tireless robot body. A reverse centaur is the inverse: a person who has been conscripted to serve as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine. The driver who cannot stop. The warehouse worker with no bathroom break. The programmer cranking out impossible volumes of code. Claims that AI will transform work are, Doctorow argues, actually a coded message to investors – signalling that mature companies should be viewed as "early stage" innovators, a far more enticing model. MediumKirkus Reviews
The AI show, in other words, is not being performed for you.
This September, Human Future Hub gathers to ask the questions that the hype is designed to prevent: Who is this technology actually for? Who is it doing it to? And what do we do about it?
We'll present the key ideas from both books, so you don't need to have read them to join the conversation. Come with your experience, your frustrations, and your honest read of what's happening.
Book links: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/