> Any thoughts about whether reverse-centaurs are something that should continue to exist?

I don't think he has really articulated a meaningful distinction between the two. It seems to be approximately "it's a centaur when you want to use AI for something and a reverse centaur when the boss wants you to use AI for something".

What he seems to want is that if AI can reduce the time it takes to do something, the time saved should be used to improve quality rather than to produce more output with fewer people. Which is nice and everything, but if you want that to happen what you need is not abstract indignation that corporations are willing to produce trash as long as people are willing to consume it, it's some efficient mechanism for people to discover high-quality things in a sea of low-quality trash.

Agreed. Doctorow doesn't believe reverse-centaurs should exist. That's a fine but very shallow position.

He's not saying reverse-centaurs should be banned, because he knows that's both untenable (how do you define "reverse-centaur") and counter-productive (reverse-centaurs will be out of a job, but VCs and billionaires will still exist).

At best he's complaining about a system that requires people to be reverse-centaurs instead of centaurs. But he doesn't examine the properties of the system that cause that. Why can't the listicle author be a centaur like Doctorow? Why are they paid so little that they need to use AI to produce entire articles instead of just a minor citation? Maybe it's because of the power-law rewards to talent, in which the few people, like Doctorow, who attract a wide readership, end up taking all the money.

In a "fair" system, maybe all authors should be paid the same flat rate. Then authors would work for the sheer joy of writing instead of to make more money. Of course, they might have to supplement their income in other ways, but at least it's fair, right? Right? I can't imagine Doctorow could disagree with that.