Who's the real Clanker?

Our new favourite slur for AI and robots says less about machines and more about the humans who gave them that name

- Tanisha Saxena [e-mail]

No, AI did not write this article. But over the past few weeks, it probably did generate some of your emails, maybe an apology note, a bucket-list itinerary, a cutesy Hinge bio, an About Us page that your boss keeps wanting changed. The bots decide what music we should listen to, record and analyse our Likes and swipes. AI is trained to even flirt on our behalf. They're making enough art to concern artists. Toy Story 5 is coming out and the new addition to the toy box is - gasp! - a tablet.

Naturally, we had to rummage through our human-made history to come up with a name to mock them. We didn't look far. We found Clanker, from Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008). The term was used for battle droids fighting a pointless war. Perfect!