How to Think About AI Before It’s Too Late

Doctorow expands on his viral “enshittification” thesis: a critique of AI based around power and whether we are using AI tools or being used by them.The following is a transcript of the episode: Cory Doctorow: Bosses are infinitely horny for firing workers and replacing them with machines. And they have been since forever, right? That’s the story of the Industrial Revolution. They just—there’s something about this, and it’s not just cutting costs. I think that if you’re the boss, you are haunted by the knowledge that if you don’t show up for work, the business just ticks over as per normal. But if all the workers don’t show up, that’s “You’re out of business.” And so maybe you tell yourself you’re driving the car, but secretly you worry that you’re in the back seat with a Fisher Price steering wheel. And one of the things about AI is: It dangles the possibility of wiring the toy steering wheel into the car’s drivetrain. [Music]Charlie Warzel: I’m Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain, a show where today we’re going to examine the case against AI.Well, sort of.What follows isn’t a case against the technology: machine learning, generative AI, coding agents. It is instead a case against this particular ideology behind AI: how it’s built, how it’s implemented. Cory Doctorow is a little bit of everything. He’s a science-fiction writer; he’s a technologist himself; he’s a prolific blogger and a journalist. He’s also an activist who has been working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on digital-rights management, among other issues.And it’s this combination of all of these jobs that make Doctorow this