Humans have chosen an official slur for AI and anything else perceived as robotic, especially those awful customer service bots: Clankers. This term first appeared in the Star Wars franchise to refer to droids and was recently popularized by a viral X post.
The “slur” quickly spread to refer to Elon Musk’s robots and inspired skits on TikTok.
“The first slur for robots”
The X post by @tekbog appeared on July 20 and gained 14.5 million views in a few days. It used that old meme image of a man ripping off his headset in disgust and says, “when u call customer support and a clanker picks up.”
A viral quote post by podcaster @kitgrier earned nearly half as many views for remarking on how far we’ve come, slur-wise.
“Can’t believe I’ve lived far enough into the future to learn the first slur for robots,” he said.
Technically, this derogatory term originated in the 2000s from the Star Wars universe. It appeared in both the 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando and the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which ran from 2008 to 2013. The term targeted enemy droids, especially those goofy, noisy ones favored by the Separatists.
With the increasing presence of artificial beings in our lives, an anti-robot slur felt inevitable. Long before people started to embrace and also despise large language models that their creators called “AI,” we all came to hate the robot voices answering customer service lines. Not to mention the scourge of robocalls.
“I cannot express the hate I feel when I need customer support, but a clanker picks up,” wrote @maxfoxington1.
Humans sure love coming up with slurs
The massive push to put AI in everything seems to have found the limit of our patience. It also might say something about some folks’ eagerness to come up with a slur every time we discover a new population, real or robotic.
“The internal white disposition to say slurs, make slurs, even in jest,” remarked @Liriminal.
Over on TikTok, the term “clanker” spread and fueled predictions about a future “robophobia” problem. TikTokers started making skits about their own anti-robot prejudice, showing or introducing their bot boyfriends to Dad.
“What’s that?” asked @just.guy.things in one such video. “I couldn’t hear you over the sound of your greasy a** gears, you dirty clanker.”
@just.guy.things Dirty clankers #clanker #robot #humanrights #fyp ♬ Gymnopedie No.1 [Piano famous song](204824) – Kamimura Mahiro
The caption reads, “POV: Me at the clanker rally in 2088.”
It is a little disturbing how well commenters are able to envision how they would be robophobic.
TikToker @space_nerd010 railed against “these f*cking buckets of bolts steeling our jobs.”
Meanwhile, @chenhonk claimed that “these machine backs never worked a hard day in their ‘lives.’”
The robophobic Dad skit by @thebrookboys gets even more intense.
@thebrookboys This bout to be the biggest fear for all Dads in year 2050 😂😂 #meme #clanker #robot ♬ Bell Sound/Temple/Gone/About 10 minutes(846892) – yulu-ism project
“What you been doin’, mechanically molesting my daughter on these so-called ‘dates?’” the dad character asks the robot across from him.
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