It started with Star Wars, and the video game in 2005 used the term clanker for robots. Since then it has slowly gained traction until now, in 2025, it is a negative and derogatory term. It represents both skepticism and resistance to artificial intelligence. In 2025, the sentiment has become mainstream. That's likely because no one has been spared the experience of a customer service chatbox. It makes me think of the self-checkout at Shoppers Drug Mart which asks "How did we do today?" I usually reply with: You didn't do anything, I did all the work.
Clanker has made mainstream news with viral coverage on TikTok and Instagram. There seems to be a social need for an ethnic slur for AI. Robot racism and robophobia is here. It is us vs them now. Here's the worry that psychologists are highlighting:
"A popular iteration of the meme features people pretending to apologize to their future robot overlords for past anti-robot transgressions, including use of the "c-word."
There are no Readers' Disgest jokes about clankers. There are no clanker jokes for children. Nothing comes up with the top 50 clanker jokes, top 25 or even to 5 clanker jokes. That's because these aren't related to humour. They are equivalent to ethnic jokes and slurs. What you will find is a long list of articles trying to explain what's going on with them.
And there are more developing - wireback, cogsucker, tin-skinned, along with "toasters" and "chrome jobs."
I wondered about the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. There aren't good jokes about him either.
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