Clanker is a slur for robots, according to Wikipedia.
Which dictionaries should we expect to declare it the word of 2025?
Among the subreddits I frequent, /r/wikipedia sits at the top of the list. It’s an odd subreddit, as many of the contributors and commenters do not seem to be Wikipedia editors. But that’s an article for another time.
I mention /r/wikipedia because it’s where I discovered the latest Wikipedia article to catch my eye: Clanker. I saw it when a redditor posted a link to it with the lengthy title:
Clanker is a slur for robots. The term was adapted from Star Wars media, first appearing in the franchise's 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando. In 2025, the term became widely used to discuss distaste for machines ranging from delivery robots to large language models.
When I first clicked the link and read the article, it was undergoing a deletion discussion. I did not initially feel compelled to join the fray on this discussion, before reading the following paragraph in the article:
In June 2025, United States Senator Ruben Gallego tweeted that his "new bill makes sure you don't have to talk to a clanker if you don't want to," referring to proposed legislation that would require call centers to disclose their use of automated customer service agents to callers in the United States and offer the option to switch to a human representative.
First of all: Ruben Gallego seems like a cool dude, based on that sentence alone.
Second, a senator is using the word “clanker”?
After reading that, I jumped into the deletion discussion. Here’s my contribution:
I was unsure at first, but there is a serious amount of coverage in here and a United States Senator using this term is a major sign that it's moved to the mainstream.
And yes, there is a serious amount of coverage for “clanker.” 15 references as of now, with probably more to come.
Now, let’s talk about all the reasons I think this article is bonkers, hilarious, and peak Wikipedia:
Is it really possible for there to be a “slur for robots”?
Let’s consider a few of the definitions of slur from across dictionaries. Note that slur has multiple definitions, is both a noun and a verb, and has evolved over the years. But here are a few definitions of it that seem most relevant:
“an offensive word used to insult someone because of their race, sexuality (= the fact of being sexually attracted to people of a particular gender), etc.:” - Cambridge Dictionary
“A term of abuse or contempt; esp. a highly offensive insult used to denigrate a person on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.” - Oxford English Dictionary
“An extremely offensive and socially unacceptable term targeted at a group of people (such as an ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.).” - Wiktionary
Do you see why these definitions are making me a little bit uncomfortable with the idea that there could be a slur for robots? Are we comparing being a robot to being Black, gay, transgender or special needs? Are we sure this is the right word?
Is this suggesting that robots are a marginalized or oppressed community?
To be as extreme as possible, is this a step toward robots being recognized as people? If so, how do we feel about that?
Yes, I understand why it says slur for robots and I’ll explain if you want me to.
The reason is pretty simple: the vast majority of the references cited in this article refer to it as a slur. Of the fifteen references, eight have “slur” in the headline:
And yes, within the Talk page this is being discussed. “Pejorative” and “slang term” have both been suggested, with the pushback being: the editors don’t get to decide. If the news is calling it a slur, Wikipedia calls it a slur. So a slur it remains.
But the other thing about this page that’s really jumping out at me:
Is there a little too much Star Wars on this page right now?
Here are all the Star Wars references in this article:
The term has been used in Star Wars media, first appearing in the franchise's 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando
The Star Wars franchise began using the term "clanker" as a slur against droids in the 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando before being prominently used in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which follows a galaxy-wide war between clone troopers and droids.[3] In Star Wars media, robots are routinely depicted as the subjects of discrimination. For example, in the original Star Wars film, C-3PO and R2-D2 are abducted by Jawas and sold to the family of Luke Skywalker. When visiting a cantina in Mos Eisley, both robots are refused by the bartender, who remarks that "We don't serve their kind.”
And then the main image for the page, which is a Star Wars battle droid (see above) with the caption:
The term "clanker" is used in the Star Wars franchise as a slur for battle droids.
Okay, I understand that Star Wars has to be mentioned on here. But can we read this part again?
In Star Wars media, robots are routinely depicted as the subjects of discrimination. For example, in the original Star Wars film, C-3PO and R2-D2 are abducted by Jawas and sold to the family of Luke Skywalker. When visiting a cantina in Mos Eisley, both robots are refused by the bartender, who remarks that "We don't serve their kind.”
I can’t help but point out that the scene being referenced here is from the original 1977 film, while “clanker” didn’t show up, as mentioned above, until a 2005 Star Wars video game.
But I will also point out: while I have participated in both the Talk page and the deletion discussion, I have not edited this article. Why? To quote Tim Robinson:
I can’t bring myself to edit an article as bizarre as this. I’m even less inclined to edit it when I see how actively it is being edited and defended, both on the article itself and in the Talk page.
The last thing I need in my life right now is an internet argument about the appropriate amount of Star Wars lore to include in an article about a slur for robots.
That said…
I did mention in the Talk page that Blade Runner replicants aren’t technically robots.
I know, I know. This is foolhardy on so many levels. But I read this sentence and it really bothered me:
While other science fiction media includes pejoratives for robots, such as "skinjob" and "toaster" from the Blade Runner and Battlestar Galactica franchises, respectively, clanker is believed to have gained popularity because its usage is intuitive and flexible.
Sure, the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is about androids. But in the movie Blade Runner they’re called replicants, and there’s a pretty major level of ambiguity about whether or not they’re robotic at all.
Or maybe there isn’t ambiguity. According to the (yes, often flawed) Google AI Overview I found just now, “replicants are not robots.”
But… the top 3 sources for this AI Overview are Reddit, YouTube, and Quora. So this might say more about Google’s bullshit than it does about replicants.
At this point, I might as well promote my own taxonomy of Artificial Intelligence entities.
In my 2016 novel The Moonborn: or, Moby-Dick on the Moon, there are three kinds of artificial intelligence:
AICs: artificial intelligence clouds
AIMs: artificial intelligence machines
AIPs: artificial intelligence persons
I would quote more from the book, but I don’t have a copy in front of me right now and I would rather that you buy one.
Don’t take my word from it. Read this artificial intelligence summary of the review of the book first:
So, yeah. Clankers? Probably a word we should all get used to, whether we ultimately consider the word itself to be a slur, a pejorative or simply slang.
And yeah, I bet money that this December, at least one dictionary declares it the word of 2025. Don’t forget I’m the one who said it would happen.
This made my day.