In yet another unsurprising twist, social media users have found a new way to voice their disdain for AI and the tech industry’s obsession with automation — by reviving an old insult: clanker. Originally used in the Star Wars prequels as a derogatory term for battle droids, clanker has found new life as a tongue-in-cheek insult aimed at real-world robots and the creeping presence of artificial intelligence. The term, popularized by clone troopers, has become shorthand for mocking tech elites' ambitions of an AI-powered future. Thanks to the lasting influence of those films on meme culture, the term has been pulled from a galaxy far, far away and dropped squarely into real-world discourse. Of course, there are people who are anti using the "c-word.” It’s satire, mostly. But it also reflects a very real cultural mood: people are facing the constant threat of being replaced by machines, and a future that seems increasingly synthetic, and they’re responding with memes, mockery, and a borro...