51–60 of 155 posts
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I also find this sentiment to be a uniquely American phenomenon. They tend to see racism and discrimination where it has no place being. My impression is that they have dreams about it. Bonkers to me.
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That snapshot appears to be of a partial page terminated with "You've read your last free article" before the real meat of the article begins. The direct wired link is: https://www.wired.com/story/the-ai-slur-clanker-has-become-a... A full readable 7 month old snapshot is: https://archive.md/gH1f5
It works fine if JavaScript is not enabled
My apologies, it was a real sighting of something that I don't have the time right now to reproduce and investigate further .
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Author here. This visceral reaction to the term fascinates me. You’re not the only person here that mentioned it and it makes me wonder where that is coming from. We’re naming a machine here, not a human being. Even if it was a slur (I don’t consider it one) it would be directed at a piece of equipment. I find it fascinating because I don’t think people would bat an eye if that term was used for a hammer or keyboard.…
I guess providers will look to (further?) exploit this for marketing/strategic purposes so we should be very aware of such an important bias.
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Seems that in some online circles it has racist connotation which I was not aware. Some context https://web.archive.org/web/20260101134925/https://www.wired...
This article also - unironically - says, that building a data center near specifically black people is literally racism. Don't waste your time reading this garbage.
Moya Bailey, a professor at Northwestern University who specializes in the representation of race and gender in the media,
Bailey also points out that racism within the AI industry goes as far as the actual methods used to power it. She references the negative health impact of xAI data centers in a Memphis neighborhood called Boxtown, which is 90 percent Black, as an example of environmental racism inflicted by the AI industry.
It's worth noting that her objections stem from clean air violations outlined here:
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is belching smog-forming pollution into an area of South Memphis that already leads the state in emergency department visits for asthma.
None of the 35 methane gas turbines that help power xAI’s massive supercomputer is equipped with pollution controls typically required by federal rules.
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The term was adopted in Star Wars and has been used in science fiction before and after it too. It probably sits somewhere on some scale but it has always been used in literature as a term for machines and from that perspective I find it appropriate. A machine does not have feelings. If you call your power drill a piece of shit you are not overstepping any bounds either.
Well maybe other people are different, but I'd feel uncomfortable using a slur against things as well as people. I don't have many qualms about using an insult to a specific item if I feel it's warranted, but using a racial slur is stepping over a line for me. I'd call a black person a twat if they were being a twat, but I wouldn't use the n words against them, no matter how much of a twat they were being
The reason you don’t insult other humans should be obvious, but none of that translates to machines. From my perspective it’s a grave mistake that we’re even remotely entertaining the idea right now that LLMs are sentient.
From that perspective I really quite appreciate the term. That said, I can see that it really seems to trigger some folks. I’m not sure we have found the right language to refer to what we have.
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Well maybe other people are different, but I'd feel uncomfortable using a slur against things as well as people. I don't have many qualms about using an insult to a specific item if I feel it's warranted, but using a racial slur is stepping over a line for me. I'd call a black person a twat if they were being a twat, but I wouldn't use the n words against them, no matter how much of a twat they were being
Where to me this discussion completely goes in a questionable direction is the idea that there are slurs against inanimate objects and that you would put that into the same category as derogatory terms against humans. The reason you don’t insult other humans should be obvious, but none of that translates to machines. From my perspective it’s a grave mistake that we’re even remotely entertaining the idea right now tha…
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> I think "clanker" is intended to be a slur It reads that way to me, and feels bad. We can just say "computer program" or similar.
Fascinating. Is it that exact word, or rather any negative words towards llms? For example would calling my agent "piece of shit" be similar for you? What about other objects like an old car?
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I couldn't even finish reading the article due to the intense negativity the use of that word evokes in me.
"that word"?
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> Engineering-wise building agents with agent essentially is a different skill patterns than building software with agents Why would that be different?
Because agents is different than conventional software: 1. They behave differently: non-deterministic vs deterministic 2. They have different mechanism: harness+llms vs codes+apis 3. They have different interfaces: clicking vs chatting They are like boston dynamics robots vs humans
You can write one in 200 lines of code. Just a TUI for an api.
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Where to me this discussion completely goes in a questionable direction is the idea that there are slurs against inanimate objects and that you would put that into the same category as derogatory terms against humans. The reason you don’t insult other humans should be obvious, but none of that translates to machines. From my perspective it’s a grave mistake that we’re even remotely entertaining the idea right now tha…
Whereas I don't think justifying the use of a slur, a word that is commonly used to be derogatory, is a good thing, even when using it in other contexts. "It's ok because its not a human" feels dangerously close to justifications for using the n word in the past
So no. I cannot stress enough how much I disagree with the idea that this is in any way related to the n-word precisely because this is addressed as non humans.
That we are seriously considering if these things should be in any ways be equated to humans to me is a problem. They are not. They cannot and must not be given rights or responsibilities. They are dumb tools and if we lose sight of that, we can go down really problematic paths.
I have even on the receiving side of agent psychosis for more than a year now (because people talk to the LLM and sometimes the LLM tells people to talk to me) and there is only darkness there.