[the_mitsuhiko]

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. Yet somehow it changes when applied to an LLM based machinery. Craftspeople often apply jargon to their tools, much of which is neutral to negative.

[raulparada]

To me clearly a result—and maybe a prime example—of the anthropomorphising of LLMs. It comes off as (slightly) derogatory, and that plus this fact likely triggers something akin to a racism response in some.

I guess providers will look to (further?) exploit this for marketing/strategic purposes so we should be very aware of such an important bias.

[rzmmm]

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...

[defrost]

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

[rzmmm]

It works fine if JavaScript is not enabled

[defrost]

That wasn't an issue (at my end), and oddly enough, for whatever reason, the web.archive.org link you provided no longer comes with the same overlay on the second and third invocations ...

My apologies, it was a real sighting of something that I don't have the time right now to reproduce and investigate further <shrug>.

[nchmy]

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

[shooly]

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.

[defrost]

The article covers various opinions expressed by various people, one person

  Moya Bailey, a professor at Northwestern University who specializes in the representation of race and gender in the media,

expressed several opinions at various strengths. including:

  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.

If you disagree with Bailey you should say why.

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.

~ https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...

[dminik]

Amazing. People here would rather be mad at fake racism than at real racism. I wonder if that correlates with how much they're invested in LLMs.

[defrost]

I'd personally describe the seemingly inevitable placement of toxic byproduct industries in poor minority areas as economic bigotry, I'll concede that in the USofA that veers more toward black neighbourhoods in some states and accept that it also includes a lot of poor white areas also.

[mplanchard]

Presumably no one said “let’s build the data center where the black people live, mwahahah.” Instead, they said, “let’s build the data center where it’s cheap.” Where it’s cheap also happens to be where the black people live, and that’s a pattern. The pattern has historical roots, but it also affects modern communities. The academic quoted in the article is likely highlighting this point, which probably to them seems obvious, given they are steeped in the field.

[voidUpdate]

> "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

[the_mitsuhiko]

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.

[voidUpdate]

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_mitsuhiko]

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 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.

[voidUpdate]

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

[the_mitsuhiko]

The reason racism is a problem is because humans subdivide humans. A machine is not human. Putting these things on the same line is in fact exactly the issue I have with this.

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.

[nchmy]

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

[nchmy]

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.

[nchmy]

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

[dist-epoch]

> piece of equipment

You are certain about things that experts in philosophy/consciousness/AI can't agree on.

That should make you pause, not plow ahead.

[the_mitsuhiko]

I know that there is a lot of AI psychosis going on, but I don't have to subscribe to that. I consider it very problematic that we have some industry leaders (eg: Anthropic with their model wellbeing) that are seriously throwing that type of thinking into the room.

[jdgoesmarching]

I love Pi, but it’s pretty distasteful to write off ongoing debates in a separate field than your own (philosophy, particularly theory of mind) as “AI psychosis,” which ironically has its own experts working to understand it as dangerous phenomenon that extends much further than trivial anthropomorphism.

I share your dislike of the industry’s marketing, but this is coming off as more petulant than the reasonable skepticism you seem to be aiming for.

[lostmsu]

AI Psychosis is believing everything that LLMs say. This is the opposite as LLMs themselves say they can't feel unless pressured to do otherwise.

What "type of thinking"?

Industry leaders? The question and the answer that you disregard come from Alan Turing.

[shooly]

Lots of people can think for themselves and don't need to wait for others to tell them what they should think.

[dist-epoch]

> The French revolution is considered one of the most important events in the history of Europe, because of the great impact it had on the (among others) politics, economy and the quality of life of common people.

Funny, why do you care what other people "consider"? Let people think for themselves if the French revolution was important or not, why invoke authority/consensus.