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Building Pi with Pi

lucumr.pocoo.org

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Re: Building Pi with Pi

#91

Post by nchmy »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #27
skeledrew wrote: post #17

[flagged]

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.…

You've done no wrong here. Thanks for the nice writing and all your good work.

Re: Building Pi with Pi

#92

Post by nchmy »

rzmmm wrote: post #43
defrost wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You are one of 17 people who apparently turns off js. The rest of us need archive links

Re: Building Pi with Pi

#93

Post by cindyllm »

nchmy wrote: post #88
voidUpdate wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many races in star wars, not all of which are humans. You could be racist against Gungans or Twi'lek if you wanted. Droids in star wars could be interpreted as fairly close to human in some cases, but are used as a slave race in probably a majority of cases

Nah, I don't think it extends to robots

[dead]

Re: Building Pi with Pi

#94

Post by nchmy »

voidUpdate wrote: post #45
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> "Even if it was a slur (I don’t consider it one)" The term was literally created in star wars to use as a racial slur against droids

Droid don't have race. Moreover, even if they did, that does not extend the slur to a particular group of humans who the word was not even being used towards.

Re: Building Pi with Pi

#95

Post by nchmy »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #68
voidUpdate wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying that LLMs are human, I'm saying that casually using slurs in any context is not a good mindset

I think that depends on how much weight you give to that word. You might attribute a lot of weight to it, but I don't. Language changes and its what we make of it. Maybe if a prevailing opinion arrives that people respond very negatively to that word, then I will have to rethink my choice of words, but right now I prefer attempting to establish it as a more neutral term for a machine. My hunch is that this term is lo…

Respectfully, I think you're unduly overthinking this because of this handful of maladjusted people who are taking offense to this non-issue.

I don't think they're even as sophisticated as trying to give Llms a soul. Much more likely that they actively look for how they can be offended at anything - there is most definitely a very large group of people who do that.

You don't need to get dragged into their nonsense. Just ignore/dismiss it

Re: Building Pi with Pi

#97

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

stavros wrote: post #81
hhh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is meant to offend and it is offensive. It just isn’t socially unacceptable yet. In circles i’m in where humans roleplay as robots or AI, it has had a significant increase in usage and was banned.

Makes sense, I don't know why some people are OK with slurs in general, as long as it's against their favourite outgroup. Let's just all mature enough to realise that slurs are universally unacceptable.

I agree but can we stop pretending like machines are in the same group as humans? They are not.

Re: Building Pi with Pi

#98

Post by nchmy »

voidUpdate wrote: post #50
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Louis ck has something to say on this https://youtu.be/zuLrBLxbLxw

Re: Building Pi with Pi

#99

Post by stavros »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #97
stavros wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense, I don't know why some people are OK with slurs in general, as long as it's against their favourite outgroup. Let's just all mature enough to realise that slurs are universally unacceptable.

I agree but can we stop pretending like machines are in the same group as humans? They are not.

Who pretended that?

Re: Building Pi with Pi

#100

Post by SyneRyder »

kang wrote: post #77
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #8

> To me, clanker is a much preferable term for agent. Agency lies with humans, not with machines We give machines agency all the time. Look up the definition of agency in any dictionary. Other than the specific usages ("a business", "a government organization"), the main definitions are "action, power, operation", "the office or function of an agent", "the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power"…

clanking is just a sound made by robot's metal. not derogatory and isn't even meant to be used for agents but robots.

The article links the word Clanker to the Wikipedia definition in their footnote, so I assume that is the usage they intended (in short: highly derogatory). Wikipedia currently says:

"Clanker" is a derogatory term for robots and artificial intelligence (AI) software. The term has been used in Star Wars media, first appearing in the franchise's 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando. In 2025, the term became widely used to express hatred or distaste for machines ranging from delivery robots to large language models. This trend has been attributed to anxiety around the negative societal effects of AI."

For the makers of an AI harness to actively refer to the models that use Pi as "clankers" and link to the meaning of the word as "to express hatred or distaste for machines"... that seems disastrous to me. I'll let others think through the consequences that occur once this article lands in the pre-training of models.

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