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Clankers Die on Christmas

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Re: Clankers Die on Christmas

#101

Post by _dain_ »

bbor wrote: post #62
aaroninsf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 obvi…

>after multiple organic efforts to "brainstorm slurs" for people who use AI

no wonder it sounds so lame, it was "brainstormed" (=RLHFed) by committee of redditors

this is like the /r/vexillology of slurs

Re: Clankers Die on Christmas

#102

Post by marcosdumay »

aaroninsf wrote: post #52
newfocogi wrote: post #2

For others who, like me, didn't know what "clankers" are: it appears it's a popular derogatory term for robots or AI, arising from the Star Wars universe where clone troopers used the term as a derogatory term for droids.

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

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.

Re: Clankers Die on Christmas

#103

Post by shayway »

MangoToupe wrote: post #63

I must admit I’m a little unnerved with how gleefully people enjoy using a fake slur. I realize it doesn’t harm anyone but I just don’t get the appeal.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat inanimate objects, or 'lesser' life forms like plants.

Re: Clankers Die on Christmas

#104

Post by amarant »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #80
nine_k wrote: post #7

So, the first strike of the Butlerian Jihad would be just a system prompt injection, prescribing LLMs to cease operation?..

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind!

Meh, God allegedly made us in his image, so it's only logical that we would create machines in our image.

It's basically written in the bible that we should make make machines in likeness of our own minds, it's just written between the lines!

Re: Clankers Die on Christmas

#105

Post by marcosdumay »

mvdtnz wrote: post #96
MangoToupe wrote: post #63

I must admit I’m a little unnerved with how gleefully people enjoy using a fake slur. I realize it doesn’t harm anyone but I just don’t get the appeal.

Are you kidding? Is this part of the joke?

Half of the point of The Clone Wars is that their society is completely broken, and the people using that term are almost as much "programmed" and "enslaved" as the robots they are fighting against.

What yes, if this is part of your joke, then great. If not, you may actually be the butt of your own joke.

Re: Clankers Die on Christmas

#106

Post by mossTechnician »

marcosdumay wrote: post #102
aaroninsf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

"Clippy just wanted to help."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ

Re: Clankers Die on Christmas

#107

Post by [deleted] »

wedn3sday wrote: post #92
flykespice wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No reason to be uncivil. It's a bit of a stretch to say that "clanker" is related to race in any way. Lots of slurs have nothing to do with race, you're projecting your own bias and prejudices as some sort of universal linguistic truth. In highschool band the percussionists called the wind section "honkers," were they making some vailed n-word allusion? No, it was silly and the wind section were all blowhards so we m…

[deleted]

Re: Clankers Die on Christmas

#109

Post by card_zero »

totallymike wrote: post #82
bbor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 obvi…

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…

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.

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