The ‘Star Wars' Slur That Has Been Mainstreamed by Anti-AI Discourse

Gizmodo

5 days ago

'Clanker.' You've probably heard the term online a lot lately, as growing wariness of the acceptance of generative AI has led to an almost science-fictional world of anti-robot sentiment. It's become an increasingly common derogatory term, growing beyond the constraints of referring to chatbots and image generators to refer to any kind of non-human robotic intelligence. It's perhaps fitting then, as it penetrates increasingly mainstream social circles, that 'Clanker' itself is rooted in science fiction—and, in particular, a world where the relationship between organic and synthetic life has long been complicated.
That world is, of course, Star Wars. 'Clanker' is a term as old as the prequel era itself: it first appears in Star Wars media in the 2005 video game Republic Commando—a tie-in set around the events of the Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith that would go on to inspire its own (occasionally controversial) legacy across both the then-expanded universe and ultimately contemporary Star Wars continuity. There, it's a derogatory remark sometimes used by one of the game's titular commandos in Delta Squad, Sev, who would occasionally refer to droid opponents mid-combat as 'lousy clankers.'
The term rose to further popularity in Star Wars a few years later with the launch of the Clone Wars 3DCG animated series in 2008. There, much like it was in Republic Commando, 'Clanker' became a commonplace term used by Republic troopers to refer to the droid forces of the Separatist armies—and explained by Obi-Wan Kenobi himself during the season two episode 'Voyage of Temptation' as shorthand describing the mechanical clanking sound made by battle droids.
Since then, the term has taken off in both Star Wars itself and in Star Wars fandom circles. While the penetration of 'Clanker' itself spread to being a derogatory term for any kind of droid, Separatist or otherwise (it's even been retroactively established as being in existence as early as the era of the High Republic, two centuries before the events of the films), within fandom, the term has mostly been fodder for memes and jokes, paralleling the term's proximity to real-world slurs.
It's only been in the summer of 2025 that 'clanker' has entered mainstream viral trends. Emerging on platforms like TikTok, the term evolved from Star Wars-specific memes and jokes to become the subject of several viral videos where the term is used to refer to more conventional modern-day robots, from food delivery to automated call center operatives—and then, making the leap from there to indicate disdain for generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Midjourney. Search for the term now and you'll find multiple viral posts using 'clanker' derogatorily or remarking on its status as an almost dystopic evolution of language, or, of course, Star Wars fans trying to remind you that they had it 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.
And yet, here we are with 'Clanker.' Star Wars has still yet to make any kind of profound leap with the rights of droids in its storytelling. Some select few are given equitable personhood, like Artoo and Threepio, but otherwise droids exist to be enslaved in some form or another, fodder that perpetually avoids the question of what it means to live a life of indentured existence, humanoid forms that are treated inhumanely. Of course, in our world, artificial intelligence is far from the level of droid sentience seen in Star Wars, no matter what any Silicon Valley tech bro tells you when they laud the arrival of generative AI as, to borrow parlance from another sci-fi franchise, futile to resist.
But in an age of skepticism over even the minor roles such intelligence can play in our modern lives, maybe it's only fair we turn to one of the most mainstream fictional universes to depict widespread anti-robot sentiment to find the tools to communicate our own disdain… even if those tools have some pretty questionable roots.
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