Had this printed so I can do my own little protesting. Here's a high-res image if you want to print your own:
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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Fuck AI
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AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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My understanding is that it was a word created to have a similar usage/meaning to the n-word, but towards not-actually-sentient computers. It was never used against any class of people, to my knowledge.
I find it super sus that people are going "yay, we get to make up a slur!" It's not a matter of the targets being hurt by it, it's the motivation.
Ehhh, I kinda get it. I like humanity; it's pretty neat. I don't like slurs denigrating certain groups of humans. I don't like AI being pushed to replace human things and being personified in its own way. This is one of the rare times that a slur is used against a non-human AND was simply declared to be intended as a slur from the beginning, rather than having some history driving it.
To your point about the motivation being important: what of the motivation do you see as a problem? I see a resistance to AI replacing important characteristics of humanity. That's a pretty good one, I'd say.
It's not a new word though, it's an onomatopoeia that dates back to late 50s science fiction, specifically in regards to robots, because that was the sound you would expect a moving metal husk to make.
Star Wars is what adopted the term to refer to the many droids of their universe. The droids are cheap, mass produced weapons used by the antagonists of the series, and therefore clanker is used to refer to them. Droids are the bad guys, bad guys = clankers, AI is seen as the bad guys, clanker = AI.
The motivation is what I already stated: "Yay, we get to make up a slur!"
To whose detriment?
To the detriment of society at large.
Is that inherently a bad motivation? What makes slurs a bad thing? The fact that they hurt people? This doesn't hurt people.
If a straight person says the word "fag" in private where no one can hear, does that hurt anyone? The target of that word is real people, but if no one is around to hear...
Eagerness to say a slur because this time no one's getting hurt indicates that someone was willing to say a slur already, but held back to be politically correct. In fact it's mostly the people chomping at the bit to call LLMs "clankers" who identify the word "clanker" as a slur in the first place. I wouldn't even be bothering to make this comment if the prevailing discourse wasn't "clanker is a slur (and that's okay)".
So you're offended by the idea of a word being offensive.
Did I say I was offended?
Some people use it for disabled people with advanced prosthetics, which I frankly find extremely disgusting.
Not saying it isn't happening, but I've never seen that.
That's fine - I've only seen one instance, but the type of person to throw out "clanker" like it's candy using it in that manner does seem in-character. A lot of them are Helldivers players who are actual fascists instead of just roleplayers.