In July, just after receiving an email pitch about the “perfect” AI girlfriend, content creator Harrison Stewart made a TikTok skit using the anti-AI slur “clanker.”Pretending to be a disapproving father, he confronted his daughter’s robot boyfriend in the year 2044. That’s your name, you dirty clanker,” Stewart says in the video. In recent months, it has become a protest of sorts against the rapid implementation of AI into virtually every aspect of society. The term “clanker,” along with “tinskins,” “wirebacks,” and “oil bleeders” are used as pejoratives in these skits. But some of these skits appear to be using clankers as stand-ins for Black people, perpetuating racist tropes and scenarios that harken back to a pre–Civil Rights era.