Skip to main content

Clanker is social medias new slur for our robot future

A clipped image from 'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace'

In yet another unsurprising twist, social media users have found a new way to voice their disdain for AI and the tech industry’s obsession with automation — by reviving an old insult: clanker.

Originally used in the Star Wars prequels as a derogatory term for battle droids, clanker has found new life as a tongue-in-cheek insult aimed at real-world robots and the creeping presence of artificial intelligence. The term, popularized by clone troopers, has become shorthand for mocking tech elites' ambitions of an AI-powered future.

Thanks to the lasting influence of those films on meme culture, the term has been pulled from a galaxy far, far away and dropped squarely into real-world discourse.

Clanker's popularity is also a response to AI-in-everything enthusiasm from evangelists like Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Take Musk's relentless pitching of his humanoid robot, Optimus. Just recently, Musk and Tesla opened a retro-style diner in California — complete with popcorn served by the Optimus robot. Musk has previously claimed that this robot will one day "roam around homes, tackling chores from laundry to lawn care."

That's also not to mention the several attempts by tech startups and giants like Amazon to create humanoid robots to replace service workers.

As clanker spreads on social media, it’s become a vehicle for a darker kind of humor. People are mock-roleplaying robot racism, spinning up exaggerated posts about anti-clanker sentiment, and how they'd act in a robot-dominated world.

Of course, there are people who are anti using the "c-word," like one tweet that describes the potential shame they'd feel 50 years from now if they had to tell a robot that "it was a different time."

It’s satire, mostly. But it also reflects a very real cultural mood: people are facing the constant threat of being replaced by machines, and a future that seems increasingly synthetic, and they’re responding with memes, mockery, and a borrowed bit of sci-fi slang.



from Mashable https://ift.tt/PQrIADy
https://ift.tt/5Z0mwRe

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WORKING 2.0 No Recoil File For PUBG | Anti-Ban File

 WORKING 2.0 No Recoil File For PUBG | Anti-Ban File - techy teacher 2.0 No Recoil File For PUBG Howdy Buddies! We are back with new theme on PUBG versatile 2.0. I genuinely want to believe that you all update your PUBG App in light of the fact that on 11 May PUBG new update has been shown up, and pretty much every client update it. As you most likely are aware my site is the best wellspring of hacking and breaking, on my site you get the most recent reports on game hacks with reasonable recordings. Today, I give you the most recent 2.0 No Recoil File For PUBG. This update is truly astounding, PUBG 2.0 report a few new and intriguing elements with regards to this update. PUBG presents new livik map and in this guide we see a great deal of new things. This new guide is entirely unexpected and PUBG add a few games in it. In this guide, you additionally appreciate soccer challenge and gather coins in remuneration to purchase plunder. How about we examine every one of the new elements ...

Meta Connect 2024: What to expect, including Quest 3S and new AR smart glasses

Meta Connect 2024 is so close, you can almost taste it. Launching during the week of Sept. 23, the social media giant is expected to rollout hardware and software goodies that will intrigue VR gamer enthusiasts, AI aficionados, and smart glasses devotees. But what, specifically, does Meta have up its sleeves? We have a few guesses based on credible reports. What to expect at Meta Connect 2024 Last year, the Meta Quest 3 was announced in early June, but it got its full reveal at Meta Connect 2023. The headset boasted a sleeker, more comfortable design, as well as new AR capabilities, that made it more appealing than its predecessor. Once again, for Meta Connect 2024, the social media giant is expected to drop a new VR headset, but it's not necessarily an upgrade over the Quest 3. Meta Quest 3S Rumor has it that Meta is planning on revealing a cheaper, more budget-friendly version of the Quest 3 called "Quest 3S." Tweet may have been deleted Whether it was intent...

When the clocks change for Daylight Saving Time, and why we do it at all

The clocks on our smartphones do something bizarre twice a year: One day in the spring, they jump ahead an hour, and our alarms go off an hour sooner. We wake up bleary-eyed and confused until we remember what just happened. Afterward, "Daylight Saving Time" becomes the norm for about eight months (And yes, it's called "Daylight Saving" not "Daylight Savings." I don't make the rules). Then, in the fall, the opposite happens. Our clocks set themselves back an hour, and we wake up refreshed, if a little uneasy.  Mild chaos ensues at both annual clock changes. What feels like an abrupt and drastic lengthening or shortening of the day causes time itself to seem fictional. Babies and dogs demand that their old sleep and feeding habits remain unchanged. And more consequential effects — for better or worse — may be involved as well (more on which in a minute). Changing our clocks is an all-out attack on our perception of time as an immutable law of ...