5 ms·

I wouldn't say popular It has a strong smell of "stop trying to make fetch happen, Gretchen."

bongodongobob 1y ago
It is. I'm seeing it all over social media lately. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=Clanker&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&ge...
bbor 1y ago
It's definitely popular online, specifically on Reddit, Bluesky, Twitter, and TikTok. There's communities that have formed around their anti-AI stance[1][2][3], and after multiple organic efforts to "brainstorm slurs" for people who use AI[4], "clanker" has come out on top. This goes back at least 2 years[6] in terms of grassroots talk, and many more to the original Clone Wars usage[7]. For those who can see the obvious: don't worry, there's plenty of pushback regarding the indirect harm of gleeful fantasy bigotry[8][9]. When you get to the less popular--but still popular!--alternatives like "wireback" and "cogsucker", it's pretty clear why a youth crushed by Woke mandates like "don't be racist plz" are so excited about unproblematic hate. This is edging on too political for HN, but I will say that this whole thing reminds me a tad of things like "kill all men" (shoutout to "we need to kill AI artist"[10]) and "police are pigs". Regardless of the injustices they were rooted in, they seem to have gotten popular in large part because it's viscerally satisfying to express yourself so passionately. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/antiai/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiai/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/LudditeRenaissance/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LudditeRenaissance/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/aislop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aislop/ [4] All the original posts seem to have now been deleted :( [6] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13x43b6/if_we_had_a_slur_for_ai_what_would_it_be/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13x43b6/if_we_ha... [7] https://web.archive.org/web/20250907033409/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/technology/clanker-anti-ai.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250907033409/https://www.nytim... [8] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/clanker-cogsucker-robot-ai-slurs-viral-1235401262/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/clanke... [9] https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/68364/1/clankers-grokkers-botlickers-ai-slurs-chatgpt-grok-artificial-intelligence https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/68364/1/cl... [10] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-need-to-kill-ai-artist https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-need-to-kill-ai-artist
- totallymike 1y ago
  Citations eight and nine amuse me. I readily and merrily agree with the articles that deriving slurs from existing racist or homophobic slurs is a problem, and the use of these terms in fashions that mirror actual racial stereotypes (e.g. "clanka") is pretty gross. That said, I think that asking people to treat ChatGPT with "kindness and respect" is patently embarrassing. We don't ask people to be nice to their phone's autocorrect, or to Siri, or to the forks in their silverware drawer, because that's stupid. ChatGPT deserves no more or less empathy than a fork does, and asking for such makes about as much sense. Additionally, I'm not sure where the "crushed by Woke" nonsense comes from. "It's so hard for the kids nowadays, they can't even be racist anymore!" is a pretty strange take, and shoving it in to your comment makes it very difficult to interpret your intent in a generous manner, whatever it may be.
  - card_zero 1y ago
    No time for a long reply, but what I want to write has video games at the center. Exterminate the aliens! is fine, in a game. But if you sincerely believe it's not a game, then you're being cruel (or righteous, if you think the aliens are evil), even though it isn't real. (This also applies to forks. If you sincerely anthropomorphize a fork, you're silly, but you'd better treat that fork with respect, or you're silly and unpleasant.) What do I mean by "fine", though? I just mean it's beyond my capacity to analyse, so I'm not going to proclaim a judgment on it, because I can't and it's not my business. If you know it's a game but it seems kind of racist and you like that, well, this is the player's own business. I can say "you should be less racist" but I don't know what processing the player is really doing, and the player is not on trial for playing, and shouldn't be. So yes, the kids should have space to play at being racist. But this is a difficult thing to express: people shouldn't be bad, but also, people should have freedom, including the freedom to be bad, which they shouldn't do. I suppose games people play include things they say playfully in public. Then I'm forced to decide whether to say "clanker" or not. I think probably not, for now, but maybe I will if it becomes really commonplace.
    - dingnuts 1y ago
IlikeKitties 1y ago
It's great i've called an LLM a fucking clanker and got to human support as a result.
marcosdumay 1y ago
I'm seeing a lot of it on the internet recently. People were also starting to equate LLMs to the MS Office's Clippy. But somebody made a popular video showing that no, Clippy was so much better than LLMs in a variety or way, and people seem to have stopped.
- mossTechnician 1y ago
  "Clippy just wanted to help." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ
- relwin 1y ago
  And before Clippy we had Microsoft BoB! Super popular as I recall...
bloqs 1y ago
forced memes are considerably easier than they used to be

It is. I'm seeing it all over social media lately. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=Clanker&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&ge...

bbor 1y ago

It's definitely popular online, specifically on Reddit, Bluesky, Twitter, and TikTok. There's communities that have formed around their anti-AI stance[1][2][3], and after multiple organic efforts to "brainstorm slurs" for people who use AI[4], "clanker" has come out on top. This goes back at least 2 years[6] in terms of grassroots talk, and many more to the original Clone Wars usage[7]. For those who can see the obvious: don't worry, there's plenty of pushback regarding the indirect harm of gleeful fantasy bigotry[8][9]. When you get to the less popular--but still popular!--alternatives like "wireback" and "cogsucker", it's pretty clear why a youth crushed by Woke mandates like "don't be racist plz" are so excited about unproblematic hate. This is edging on too political for HN, but I will say that this whole thing reminds me a tad of things like "kill all men" (shoutout to "we need to kill AI artist"[10]) and "police are pigs". Regardless of the injustices they were rooted in, they seem to have gotten popular in large part because it's viscerally satisfying to express yourself so passionately. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/antiai/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiai/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/LudditeRenaissance/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LudditeRenaissance/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/aislop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aislop/ [4] All the original posts seem to have now been deleted :( [6] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13x43b6/if_we_had_a_slur_for_ai_what_would_it_be/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13x43b6/if_we_ha... [7] https://web.archive.org/web/20250907033409/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/technology/clanker-anti-ai.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250907033409/https://www.nytim... [8] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/clanker-cogsucker-robot-ai-slurs-viral-1235401262/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/clanke... [9] https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/68364/1/clankers-grokkers-botlickers-ai-slurs-chatgpt-grok-artificial-intelligence https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/68364/1/cl... [10] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-need-to-kill-ai-artist https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-need-to-kill-ai-artist

totallymike 1y ago
Citations eight and nine amuse me. I readily and merrily agree with the articles that deriving slurs from existing racist or homophobic slurs is a problem, and the use of these terms in fashions that mirror actual racial stereotypes (e.g. "clanka") is pretty gross. That said, I think that asking people to treat ChatGPT with "kindness and respect" is patently embarrassing. We don't ask people to be nice to their phone's autocorrect, or to Siri, or to the forks in their silverware drawer, because that's stupid. ChatGPT deserves no more or less empathy than a fork does, and asking for such makes about as much sense. Additionally, I'm not sure where the "crushed by Woke" nonsense comes from. "It's so hard for the kids nowadays, they can't even be racist anymore!" is a pretty strange take, and shoving it in to your comment makes it very difficult to interpret your intent in a generous manner, whatever it may be.
- card_zero 1y ago
  No time for a long reply, but what I want to write has video games at the center. Exterminate the aliens! is fine, in a game. But if you sincerely believe it's not a game, then you're being cruel (or righteous, if you think the aliens are evil), even though it isn't real. (This also applies to forks. If you sincerely anthropomorphize a fork, you're silly, but you'd better treat that fork with respect, or you're silly and unpleasant.) What do I mean by "fine", though? I just mean it's beyond my capacity to analyse, so I'm not going to proclaim a judgment on it, because I can't and it's not my business. If you know it's a game but it seems kind of racist and you like that, well, this is the player's own business. I can say "you should be less racist" but I don't know what processing the player is really doing, and the player is not on trial for playing, and shouldn't be. So yes, the kids should have space to play at being racist. But this is a difficult thing to express: people shouldn't be bad, but also, people should have freedom, including the freedom to be bad, which they shouldn't do. I suppose games people play include things they say playfully in public. Then I'm forced to decide whether to say "clanker" or not. I think probably not, for now, but maybe I will if it becomes really commonplace.
  - dingnuts 1y ago

IlikeKitties 1y ago

It's great i've called an LLM a fucking clanker and got to human support as a result.

marcosdumay 1y ago

I'm seeing a lot of it on the internet recently. People were also starting to equate LLMs to the MS Office's Clippy. But somebody made a popular video showing that no, Clippy was so much better than LLMs in a variety or way, and people seem to have stopped.

mossTechnician 1y ago
"Clippy just wanted to help." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ
relwin 1y ago
And before Clippy we had Microsoft BoB! Super popular as I recall...

bloqs 1y ago

forced memes are considerably easier than they used to be