A derogatory term seen increasingly on the internet that refers to any non-human robotic intelligence, the word ‘clanker‘ has evolved far beyond the realms of the galaxy far, far away to dismissively describe generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Midjourney. Gizmodo take a look at the evolution of the term, its roots in the GFFA and how yes, we used that term first.
But it’s perhaps fitting that, regardless of the number of sci-fi franchises about robot-ruled dystopias, it was Star Wars that gave us a mainstreamed slur for artificial intelligences. From the very beginning of the series, C-3PO and R2-D2 were sold into indentured servitude; we see Wuher, the Mos Eisley Cantina bartender, snarling, “We don’t serve their kind“—synthetic life has always been treated as second-class in the galaxy far, far away. It would take years for expanded material to try and justify the horrors of what posing the simple question “Are droids people?” even raised, and it’s taken longer still for Star Wars to even really grapple with the idea of what it means to treat a droid as any form of sentient life.
