The Stochastic Game
Ramblings of General Geekery

Another interesting article from Cory Doctorow about our relation to (new) technology, and the metaphor of the “centaur” vs “reverse-centaur”. It reminds me another similar framing from, I think, the Technology Connections channel, about “automation” vs “babysitting” or something.

There’s a bit of automation theory jargon that I ab­solutely adore: “centaurs” and “reverse-centaurs.” A centaur is a human being who is assisted by a machine that does some onerous task (like transcribing 40 hours of podcasts). A reverse-centaur is a machine that is assisted by a human being, who is expected to work at the machine’s pace. That would be Buscaglia: who was given an assignment to do the work of 50 or more people, on a short timescale, and a shoestring budget.

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