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Cory Doctorow boosted
Alexander Goeres 𒀯
@jabgoe2089@hub.netzgemeinde.eu  ·  activity timestamp 3 days ago

here in this piece @Cory Doctorow is describing the relation between human workers and ai. in particular what he calls "reverse centaurs" or other authors have named "accountability sinks".
there are lots of great insights in this article but one stood out for me: working with ai is not easy. people often think that having ai create texts for them is an innocuous thing. like OCR just more modern. but it isn't. errors made by ai can be very hard to spot. and doctorow here describes, why:

And because AI is just a word guessing program, because all it does is calculate the most probable word to go next, the errors it makes are especially subtle and hard to spot, because these bugs are literally statistically indistinguishable from working code (except that they're bugs).
[...]
And you, the human in the loop – the reverse centaur – you have to spot this subtle, hard to find error, this bug that is literally statistically indistinguishable from correct code.

as john oliver recently said:
welcome to the demise of our mutually shared reality! isn't it fun?!


# computer # CoryDoctorow # JohnOliver # ReverseCentaur # AccountabilitySink # AI # KI

#^Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (05 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period. Last night, I gave a speech for the University of Washington's "Neuroscience, AI and Society" lecture series, through the university's Computational Neuroscience Center. It was...

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (05 Dec 2025)

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Alexander Goeres 𒀯
@jabgoe2089@hub.netzgemeinde.eu  ·  activity timestamp 3 days ago

here in this piece @Cory Doctorow is describing the relation between human workers and ai. in particular what he calls "reverse centaurs" or other authors have named "accountability sinks".
there are lots of great insights in this article but one stood out for me: working with ai is not easy. people often think that having ai create texts for them is an innocuous thing. like OCR just more modern. but it isn't. errors made by ai can be very hard to spot. and doctorow here describes, why:

And because AI is just a word guessing program, because all it does is calculate the most probable word to go next, the errors it makes are especially subtle and hard to spot, because these bugs are literally statistically indistinguishable from working code (except that they're bugs).
[...]
And you, the human in the loop – the reverse centaur – you have to spot this subtle, hard to find error, this bug that is literally statistically indistinguishable from correct code.

as john oliver recently said:
welcome to the demise of our mutually shared reality! isn't it fun?!


# computer # CoryDoctorow # JohnOliver # ReverseCentaur # AccountabilitySink # AI # KI

#^Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (05 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Bild/Foto

Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period. Last night, I gave a speech for the University of Washington's "Neuroscience, AI and Society" lecture series, through the university's Computational Neuroscience Center. It was...

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (05 Dec 2025)

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Cory Doctorow boosted
Mark Crocker
@mcrocker@indieweb.social  ·  activity timestamp 3 months ago
@span axbom this is why @span pluralistic is writhing articles about "Reverse Centaurs". It wasn't until I saw the image in this article, https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/11/vulgar-thatcherism/#there-is-an-alternative , that the meme really stuck in my head though 🤣

#ReverseCentaur

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Per Axbom
@axbom@axbom.me  ·  activity timestamp 3 months ago

Going from: "I wanted the computer to do this well-defined task, and it did it, and saved me some time because I can verify that what it did is aligned with my intent, and correct."

Going to: "I asked the computer random stuff and I'm 'obeying' without knowing why or how the output came about. I don't care much about understanding my own will anymore as long as the software says 'AI' on the label."

Mark Crocker
@mcrocker@indieweb.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 3 months ago
@span axbom this is why @span pluralistic is writhing articles about "Reverse Centaurs". It wasn't until I saw the image in this article, https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/11/vulgar-thatcherism/#there-is-an-alternative , that the meme really stuck in my head though 🤣

#ReverseCentaur

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