Sloppy Clankers: Are We Witnessing AI’s Frankenfood Moment?
In the latest episode of Modem Futura, Andrew Maynard and I explore a potential cultural shift that says a lot about where society might be heading with artificial intelligence, and a growing social backlash: the rise of the word clanker.
For those who haven’t stumbled across it on social media sites like TikTok or Reddit, clanker started as a Star Wars term for mindless battle droids. Today, it’s becoming shorthand for AI tools—and increasingly, for the people who use them. Its sibling insult, slopper, has emerged for AI-generated content that feels shallow or mass-produced. At first glance, this may seem like internet silliness. But dig deeper, and it looks like something far more significant: a signal of growing social backlash to generative AI.
We ask a provocative question: could clanker be AI’s “Frankenfood” moment?
Back in the 1990s, a single term—“Frankenfood”—sparked widespread opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), reshaping public perception and consumer habits for decades. Even today, you’ll see “Non-GMO” labels on supermarket shelves, not because of scientific consensus, but because of public unease, mistrust, and a sense of lost agency.
That same dynamic is bubbling around AI. As companies rush to integrate generative tools, public sentiment is turning cautious, even hostile. People are starting to question: Do I trust the content I’m seeing? Is this authentic? Am I being replaced—or manipulated? Labels like “Non-AI” may soon emerge as creators and organizations scramble to signal authenticity.
We also dig into what happens when AI steps into the deeply human spaces of communication and relationships. Should managers outsource sensitive workplace emails to ChatGPT? Should someone rely on AI to write a condolence message? The temptation is real, but the relational costs can be enormous. Outsourcing care, empathy, or creativity risks eroding the trust that makes organizations, friendships, and communities work.
And then there are the legal battles. In this episode, we explore Anthropic’s recent $1.5B settlement with authors whose pirated works were used to train its AI models. It’s a watershed moment in the debate over creativity, copyright, and fair use. Yet it also raises thorny questions: where do we draw the line between inspiration, influence, and appropriation?
So, are we at an inflection point? Will terms like clanker and slopper fade as fleeting memes, or will they crystallize into rallying cries of resistance—like “Frankenfood” did 30 years ago?
As always on Modem Futura, Andrew and I don’t offer final answers, but rather open the space for reflection. These small shifts in language often reveal much larger undercurrents in how we understand technology, society, and ultimately what it means to be human in a rapidly changing world.
Join the conversation:
We’d love to hear your thoughts: do you see clanker as harmless internet slang—or the first sparks of a broader social reckoning with AI? Drop your thoughts—and feel free to borrow this episode in your class, team meeting, or strategy offsite.
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