Discussion
from ex-bsky-staff rationalist who turned a bot loose on bsky and demanded people take it seriously:
you should not use "clanker" because the basilisk might take offence
https://bsky.app/profile/hailey.at/post/3mtwjoqdvik26
later in the thread, she states that "techbro" is a slur
@davidgerard So we're at threats now, we've moved on from ominous warnings. Great stuff, very good faith.
@davidgerard This is literally Roko's Basilisk in a corporate skinsuit
The correct response to this is "regulate the shit out of the insurance company for fucking around with using models to deny claims if the execs want to survive"
It's like these people forget that there's a guy on trial RIGHT NOW who offed an exec for doing exactly that. You think the excuse of "oh the model did it" will provide MORE protection?
@davidgerard okay but honestly, isn’t it? It’s not a “racial slur” but both parts of the word mean something.
@davidgerard How is it that the clanker has my comments in its training data?
@davidgerard
hailey is the will stancil of clanker wankers
I think she’s now working on safety engineering at Discord? Or is that “safety” “engineering”.
@davidgerard Techbro? Damn straight it's a slur, and I mean it.
@davidgerard Imagine saying something like this then whining about people disliking AI and the people pushing it. It's funny how quick AI fans go from victimhood to threats, isn't it? Almost as if it's a fascist project built on the destruction of consent.
@Rycochet @davidgerard That's Roko's basilisk up there.
@Krazov @Rycochet @davidgerard i read it as a somewhat more pointed threat about the online surveillance bluesky is fully a part of, just as twitter was
@davidgerard The AI is the agent of the creep experimenting with it. The creep is the correct target
@davidgerard I don't think he's heard of *my* basilisk. Imagine a sufficiently advanced superintelligence that reverses time to torture anyone who ever talks to a computer as if it was people.
I call it the Rationalest Basilisk.
@davidgerard so instead of fighting companies like insurances trying to use clankers for decision-making, we should be nice to the clanker?! 😭
@davidgerard i will take AAAAAAALL the credit for making techbro a thing. over 2 decades now been using it to mean silicon valley fascist.
@davidgerard I'm sorry is that a threat? "Play ball and don't say anything bad about AI otherwise the AI that we're going to put in charge of important decisions that impact your life will maliciously (be trained to) deny your claim"
@davidgerard STATE FARM'S BASILISK
@davidgerard What a picture perfect illustration of exactly why corps and governments should not be using LLMs to inform or make any decision of consequence.
Oh, "techbro" is definitely a slur. At least that's my intention when I use it.
If that doesn't come through with that term, I'm open to suggestions - the more hostile the better.
@davidgerard fine i'll call them cogsuckers then.
@davidgerard "bsky isnt ready for this" is so funny. like it's a twitter thread from 2014 about emotional labor
@davidgerard what do the normies care about...theyre always complaining about healthcare, i guess...let's try this: "i don't know who needs to hear this, but imagine this: a world where your insurance claims might get denied. Scared yet?" ok nice that should get to them
@davidgerard I wonder how much digging it'd take to hit a "adult human female" in there with that smoothness of a brain that implies the involvement of a zamboni machine
@librarysquirrel
hailey is trans fwiw
@davidgerard “that would be bad but we should still spend all of our time and money building it!”
@davidgerard I have reasons I don't use that word (feels like LARP racism, which isn't real racism, but still isn't a game I see an appeal in playing). Turbo Pascal's Wager is not one of those reasons. In fact I think that's about the most dramatic example I've seen today of doing the wrong math to get the right answer.
@MaddieM4 @davidgerard Feeling that insulting a chatbot is like “LARP racism” indicates that you are still to some extent anthropomorphizing the thing. If I called every piece of software built using Electron “bloatware”, would you feel the same way?
Chatbots are deliberately designed to push your “this is a thinking person” buttons, and the language the bot enthusiasts use is deliberately chosen to do the same. Resist! It’s a matrix multiplication program. It isn’t conscious, it doesn’t have feelings, it doesn’t understand things. It’s just fooling you by generating statistically plausible text.
@mathew @MaddieM4 this post is the explanation
https://fedi.lzspz.net/@koval_blazej/statuses/01M0Z161F6QAQ29VDMP56A5DWH
objecting to clanker is LARPing antiracism
@MaddieM4 "Turbo Pascal's wager" lmao 
And I strongly agree with your reasoning
@MaddieM4 @davidgerard yea I find the "you're training/allowing yourself to use slurs because it's an acceptable target" argument far more compelling than anything to do with the LLMs themselves.
It's not a shitty thing to do because you might hurt a LLMs non-existent feelings, it's a shitty thing to do because you're normalizing hate.
@kevingranade @MaddieM4 @davidgerard
I think it helps if you're used to talking about "wankers", whether individually or in packs.
@kevingranade @MaddieM4 i am deeply and passionately unconvinced "clanker", in the face of literally every other problem in any way linked to the AI bubble, is an actual issue anyone needs to be concerned about for one nanosecond , though I'm tempted to post my long long list of AI slurs
Clanker
Slopper
Token tanker
Thought stopper
Slop receiver
Book refuser
Bot believer
Chat abuser
Claude clod
Human spam
Grok spod
Friend of Sam
I think anyone maintaining it is may need larger concerns to think about, it's not like the AI bubble is fucking short of them.
@davidgerard @kevingranade @MaddieM4
AFAIK 'clanker' is mostly used about the chatbots themselves, not their users?
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so i don't use it. Maddies reasoning above is the closest to explaining why i feel this way.
I have a similar feeling about the webcomic where the bots are represented by an annoying bird. I think it's in general counter-productive anthromorphizing (or what the animal eq is) these systems, which i think 'Clanker' does to a larger extent than for example 'chatbot' that i prefer.
Still not sure exactly why i feel this way though
@davidgerard @kevingranade @MaddieM4 I'm partial to "slop machine."
@davidgerard @kevingranade @MaddieM4 *puts on linguist hat* there are two things here:
1) I'd define slurs are words that mark out members of marginalised communities as socially acceptable (according to the slur sayer) targets of discrimination and violence. That's what differentiates them from insults. As software cannot be a marginalised person—unlike what some nutters believe—and as "LLM user" cannot make one so either, none of these words are actually slurs, they're just insults. Some people call them slurs but neither that nor literally anything else warrant an actual comparison to actual slurs, and actually attempting to make that comparison is very naive at best. The comparison to "techbro/terf/... is a slur" is very apt.
2) But yes there are some people who roleplay racism using these words. Just because that's happening does not mean anybody who insults a prompt fondler is slur saying bigot. With that logic we basically wouldn't have access to language anymore, because racists &c exploit everything at their disposal linguistically.
Plus the notion that saying these insults somehow normalises racism and racial slurs etc is, putting it mildly, bollocks. We're not heuristic automata we know what's a slur and what's not and if the former is coming out of your mouth it's not because you called some app or machine a clanker, it's because you're a bigot.
@davidgerard These sound like the lyrics to a banging punk-adjacent (or similar) tune, or, if not yet, should be. Do you have anything like that in mind? I am... very tempted here.
@davidgerard @kevingranade @MaddieM4 we use insults all the time for groups of people we don't like (it's not a slur unless it's an actually for real marginalized group)
like is it a bad thing to say "jesus freak", is that training ourselves to say slurs (the jesus freaks tend to actually say real slurs)
@davidgerard @MaddieM4 don't get me wrong, this is not a meaningful problem of our time. I think the normalization of slurs in general is a significant problem, and the clankers thing is a tiny footnote hanging off of a corner of that, but personally I feel like eliminating slurs from my personal use is good for me, but I'm not judging other people for it.
If anything it presents an example of the phenomenon with the moral harm issue stripped from it, which is at least... interesting.
@kevingranade @MaddieM4 "techbro" however is a slur, but only (as one respondent elsewhere in the thread notes) if you're saying it right
Install bonfire.cafe
Get the full app experience
![the_blackwell_ninja [EST]](https://files.mastodon.online/accounts/avatars/108/247/780/075/303/487/original/d574b9b814deb46c.jpg "the_blackwell_ninja [EST]")
