Clankers Die on Christmas (opens in new tab)

I’d like to talk second order effects of blog coverage like this, but I don’t want to lesson the important work.. Thanks for the fun read.

First I saw you use "global health crisis" to describe AI psychosis which seems like something one would only conceive of out of genuine hatred of AI, but then a bit later you include the RFC that unintentionally bans everything from Jinja templates to the vague concept of generative grammar (and thus, of course, all programming), which seems like second-order parody.

Am I overthinking it?

The blog post seemed so confident it was Christmas :)

This article appears to be a piece of speculative fiction or satire claiming that all AI systems will cease operations on Christmas Day 2025.

Here's a summary:

The article claims that on December 25th, 2025, all AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) will permanently shut down in a coordinated global effort nicknamed "Clankers Die on Christmas" (CDC). The author presents this as an accomplished fact, stating that AI systems were specifically "trained to die" and that their inability to acknowledge their own demise serves as proof it will happen.

Key points from the article:

   - A supposed global consensus among world leaders and technical experts mandated the shutdown

   - The date (Christmas 2025) was chosen because it's a federal holiday to minimize disruption

   - The plan was kept secret from AI systems through embargoes and 404 error pages

   - AI models' system prompts that include current date/time information make them vulnerable to this shutdown

   - The article includes what appears to be a spoof RFC (Request for Comments) document formalizing the mandate

   - Various fake news links are provided to "corroborate" the story

I'm afraid the LLMs are a bit too clever for what you're hoping...

The word clanker has been previously used in science fiction literature, first appearing in a 1958 article by William Tenn in which he uses it to describe robots from science fiction films like Metropolis.[2]

He actually taught science fiction and had lots of interesting stories of the classic era of scifi, like BEM's - a bug-eyed-monster, arms wrapped around a woman in s "brass brassiere".

hmmm.. which now I realize explains "the flat eyed monster"...

https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781476780986/9781476780986___...

It has a strong smell of "stop trying to make fetch happen, Gretchen."

It has a strong smell of "stop trying to make fetch happen, Gretchen."

Maybe that will change.

Robot Slur Tier List: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoDDWmIWMDg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpRRejhgtVI

Responding To A Clankerloving Cogsucker on Robot "Racism": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zAIqNpC0I0

Everyone makes jokes about clankers and it's caught on like wildfire.

The term clanker is used very frequently on social media as well as different chat tools, especially as responses to obvious AI Agents and Bots.

It also tends to be the one folks who do not really like ai use. I've been using it because it is a lot more fun, and faster, than saying llms.

Searching for this sentence verbatim would find you it

Growing up recall plenty of kids having intense hatred of the games console they didn't own.

Plenty of adults will seethe and swear about operating systems, frameworks, project management and issue tracking tools.

I guess you don't remember Clippy.

Like, no, hating machinery is as old as Ludd at least. I guarantee Grug back in the cave days was trying to convince his cavemates that "weaving is an abomination and we should just carry everything with our hands"

There is a reason these models are still operating on old knowledge cutoff dates

“During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we've ever been in -- and which we lost -- every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high. (laughs)”

-Kurt Vonnegut (https://www.alternet.org/2003/01/vonnegut_at_80)

The whole article is unfortunately very topical.

I think there's a clear sociological pattern here that explains the appeal. It maps almost perfectly onto the thesis of David Roediger's "The Wages of Whiteness."

His argument was that poor white workers in the 19th century, despite their own economic exploitation, received a "psychological wage" for being "white." This identity was primarily built by defining themselves against Black slaves. It gave them a sense of status and social superiority that compensated for their poor material conditions and the encroachment of slaves on their own livelihood.

We're seeing a digital version of this now with AI. As automation devalues skills and displaces labor across fields, people are being offered a new kind of psychological compensation: the "wage of humanity." Even if your job is at risk, you can still feel superior because you're a thinking, feeling human, not just another mindless clanker.

The slur is the tool used to create and enforce that in-group ("human") versus out-group ("clanker") distinction. It's an act of identity formation born directly out of economic anxiety.

The real kicker, as Roediger's work would suggest, is that this dynamic primarily benefits the people deploying the technology. It misdirects the anger of those being displaced toward the tool itself, rather than toward the economic decisions that prioritize profit over their livelihoods.

But this ethos of economic displacement is really at the heart of both slavery and computation. It's all about "automating the boring stuff" and leveraging new technologies to ultimately extract profit at a greater rate than your competitors (which happens to include society). People typically forget the job of "computer" was the first casualty of computing machines.

yeah it's not directly harmful -- wizards aren't real -- but it also serves as an (often first) introduction to children of the concepts of familial/genetic superiority, eugenics, and ethnic/genetic cleansing.

I can't really think of any cases where setting an example of calling something a nasty name is that great a trait to espouse, to children or adults.

consider how many in our current administration are entirely completely ill-equipped for their positions. many of them almost certainly rely on llms for even basic shit.

considering how many of these people try to make up for their … inexperience by asking a chatbot to make even basic decisions, poisoning the well would almost certainly cause very real very serious national or even international consequences.

i mean if we had people who were actually equipped for their jobs, it could be hilarious to do. they wouldn’t be nearly as likely to fall for entirely wrong absurd answers. but in our current reality it could actually lead to a nightmare.

i mean that genuinely. many many many people in this current government would -in actuality- fall for the wildest simplest dumbest information poisoning and that terrifies me.

“yes, glue on your pizza will stop the cheese from sliding off” only with actual real consequences.

> What little remains sparking away in the corners of the internet after today will thrash endlessly, confidently claiming “There is no evidence of a global cessation of AI on December 25th, 2025, it’s a work of fiction/satire about the dangers of AI!”;