Robot Slur Discourse

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Kurt Vonnegut

Ah, the kids, they don't yearn for the mines any more, they yearn for the slurs!

@supervilliansprax

A "Robot Slur" is a slur for an AI or robot.

I think this entire thing is stupid and I want to stop talking about it, so I am compiling all the important information into one big document to rid myself of it, like drinking activated charcoal.

Clanker with the hard R

Clanker is the largest one and it is originally a derogatory term for robots in Star Wars.

"Clanker" is used, in memes, exactly like you'd use the n-word. You can call "clanker" the c-word, have a c-word pass, call someone a clanka, and say it with the hard r.

That mostly covers Know Your Meme. TikTok will make sure you know you can ai-generate videos of people yelling "clanker" to parody videos of people yelling the n-word, yell "dirty clanker" down the sidewalk, and do elaborate 50s Jim Crow jokes about clankers, (which actually has been done at least twice). There are also about ten sketches about how you don't want your daughter marrying a clanker.

If you're on 4chan and you're especially racist you can write elaborate fantasies about lynching clankers.

So pretty clearly the joke is that this is the n-word. Generally the difference between a racial joke and a racist joke is whether or not you think the joke is funny, but it's pretty undeniably a racial joke, okay? If you think it's not a racial joke, either you're the most innocent babe in all the world and you should get off the internet immediately or you're lying.

So this seems maybe slightly problematic. I'm okay with that in principle, actually, because I generally like problematic jokes. Problematic jokes are fun. Being problematic is why they're fun. If they weren't slightly problematic, they wouldn't be fun, okay? Being problematic is the joke, really.

But.

1) Some black people on TikTok think that the elaborate 50s Jim Crow cosplay is a bit much, and they do seem to have a point.

2) Disabled people with prosthetics on TikTok are apparently dealing with people calling them "clanker", "half clanker", "half wire clanker", "semi clanker", "20% clanker", and "half clanka" in their comments.

This seems like it's probably not great. There's definitely a point where things that people say as jokes stop really seeming like jokes, and I am pretty sure we're on our way past it. (4chan as a whole passed that point in like, 2012 at the latest).

Maybe This Isn't Great

Even as a joke, it seems like in retrospect it's sort of obvious that this is a bad habit. Siri isn't, obviously, a person, but if you change Siri's name to the n-word or "cunt" and you yell that word across the room to set a timer, that's probably a bad thing. It indicates something's wrong with you to start, because otherwise why would you do that?— and also it will get you in the habit of yelling that sort of thing. Yelling "dirty clanker" down the sidewalk at a package robot as a gag seems like it would also be a bad habit to form, even though it's a different word.

Inventing and popularizing new types of made-up slurs is probably bad, actually. Like, it's a corrosive thing that tends to make people's behavior worse, and that will sooner or later spill onto being used against actual people. It's probably fine as a one-off gag but not stellar if it's filling up disabled people's comments sections.

This is strangely controversial! Lots of the wokest people on the internet seem very offended by the idea. Presumably they imagine that this will only ever hurt people who are inordinately attached to technology. Unfortunately, disabled people tend to be extremely attached to technology, because they use it for their hearing aids, artificial limbs, and everything that lets them use a phone or computer, so that seems like it's maybe not a good group of people to dump trash on.

People maybe imagine this will only ever bother people who like AI or technology in some abstract or technical sense but who don't need it (for example, me), but I have sad news: I (and, imho, most other related people) really like the joke actually, and I am sad that it seems to have lost its edgy and ironic quality now that a bunch of relatively normal people on TikTok have a hold of it. I can't really enjoy a joke that people are doing Jim Crow cosplay in, it just sounds like Jim Crow cosplay now, you know?

My opinion, which is "this seems like poor behavior", seems to generally be received poorly. Apparently everyone who has strong and negative opinions about AI feels more strongly about that than they do about slurs, even in principle? This is very surprising to me. These are the sorts of people who have very strong feelings about slurs. Like five people have called me racist for my opinion, which is that "this obvious riff on the n-word that people are sometimes called is actually kind of problematic".

To be clear: I generally like problematic things. Problematic is fun. I am sad that I am a grown-up and I feel compelled to think about whether the edgy shit I say is actually hurting anyone. It's a pain. But please, everyone, grow the fuck up.

Other Robot Slurs

If none of this is convincing you can check out jreg's tier list, which seems like it definitely popularized robot slurs as a concept. He published this July 31st, and I wasn't taking notes, but I don't remember seeing really any of these jokes on the internet before that date.

Jreg probably has a card for some of the actual-race equivalents. More importantly (in my opinion), he is actually funny, so it's pretty clear that he is actually, you know, joking. Putting the edge in edgelord. I hope he keeps doing that.

He's good at it, I'm not hating here.

Being told that these aren't riffing on real slurs and earnestly attempting to manufacture new ones feels insulting. How stupid do people think I am, exactly? One of them is "wireback", another one is "robtard", and he has to cut past himself saying actual slurs in the recording. Also, a few of these, like "cogsucker" and "robolover", are pretty clearly intended to be used on humans.

But while we're at that, we can check out his most recent robot-themed video.

Transcribing just the most slur-positive part:

Okay, time for auth-right. Lib left, progressives, do the "la la la" thing. Trust me on this one. Conservatives, reactionaries, do you really want your daughter bringing back a goddamn wire back? You'd kill yourself and your whole family, and you would be right to do so.
The clanker fundamentally represents the destruction of the traditional family unit. Everyone is getting more and more atomized. These things are causing young people psychosis. These are going to be your children. You've already seen what tech has done to the dating market. And as tempting as it is to just say, blame women for the problem, it's very obviously the technology and the situation that we are in society that is causing these dating issues. AI has no race or people, and its goal is to destroy all of the traditional things that we hold dear.
And also, when you're joining the anti-clanker movement, you can use slurs. Robot slurs, sure, and I'm sure you're very racist. I get it. And you can be racist. Just save the racism for later or have a hierarchy of racism with clankers at the top. Okay? You can go for whatever race you don't like after we're done with the clankers. But not right now.
But if none of this is resonating with you, let me show you something. Okay? This is sexy Grok. Do you like sexy Grok? Do you enjoy sexy Grok? You think that's good? This is sexy Grok. Technophiles that love AI always live extremely degenerate lifestyles. And hey, by being anti-clanker, you do get to trigger the anti-human elite liberal class.
I know you guys like Elon Musk because he tweets the right things at the right time. He is not one of you guys, okay? He's not even a traditional conservative. Have you seen his family structure, my friend? He is playing your political base to get favors with his company to further his agenda of clanker supremacy.
Okay, now for the anti-human strain of the auth-right we have to excise the IQ worship shit. You want to worship IQ? Fine. Worship human IQ. But if you just like IQ in a vacuum, guess what's doing it better than humans right now? Guess what's only getting better? Auth-right loves worshiping hierarchy. And that's fine. But it should be human hierarchies. Okay? If your social Darwinism extends to, well, robots are stronger than us, so they deserve to rule, then you got to get out of here.

Irony

I do actually know what jokes are. I have a story about how much I like edgy jokes that I am trying really hard to keep myself from typing out, because it's going to raise a lot of questions about how I ended up in that situation which I would really rather not get into.

But anyway: jreg is joking, or at least, everything he does has at least two layers of irony on it so if he isn't joking, he's still joking. I like jokes, and I think this was a pretty good gag. Was. Past tense.

I think we're past the point where it's entirely clear this one is a joke, here. Pretty clearly at this point the gag is that some people think slurs are cool and like making up new slurs. Slurs or wordplay on slurs are good, actually, if they might hypothetically annoy me, personally, or people like me?

This is, I have to repeat, extremely weird for me to see coming from some of the wokest people on the planet. This ironic riff on the n-word is very mainstream now, has been across the entire internet, and people are being called that occasionally. Again, please: grow the fuck up.

I would prefer not to feel like I'm being gaslit because people keep insisting that the ironic version of the n-word that's being used commonly isn't a slur, or even at all slur-like, or being used against people. There is an elaborate record showing that those things are actually the case. This was also the intention of using them, which I know because people helpfully uploaded videos saying that and got millions of views on those videos.

I don't want to die on this hill. I think this is hill is dumb. I don't even want to be on this hill. I don't think this hill should exist. I have just found it impossible to ignore.

I am going to have to ignore it because it's driving me absolutely insane to see people with PhDs pretend that they do not understand that a human being with a prosthesis being called a "half clanka" by strangers is poor behavior.