Today, I am making The Sign, because yesterday I really could have used The Sign, and tomorrow I may have need of it again.

![[images/the-sign.png]]

> The Simpsons meme where a bus driver says "Don't make me tap the sign." The sign reads: "You're allowed to say 'clanker.' I'm allowed to feel mildly grossed out if/when you do."

I actually kicked an online hornet's nest by giving a *milder* version of this take, which is how I eventually found out that pro-LLM fools have been using similar rhetoric for concern trolling purposes, and now my anti-LLM allies are very sensitive to even homeopathic, LaCroixan amounts of "mayyybe it's not ideal to phrase our critique in ways that unnecessarily resemble IRL racism." This led to people I actually politically 95%+ agree with angrily putting words in my mouth, which I can tolerate, but don't really have the feederism fetish to enjoy.

In light of that experience, I think it'd be helpful to list a things I actually do think/believe, so that if someone wants to argue with a strawman version of me, I can just tap the sign and clear up any misconceptions. I'll even number them so I can reference specific ones when I link this post.

1. The industry of LLM products is a fascist project, and I am skeptical how much will ever be salvageable from this branch of machine learning or the billions of dollars invested.
2. LLMs are not capable of sentience, and cannot get offended by being called names. None of my objection to robo-slurs is about the robots themselves. If your counter-argument is that LLMs don't have feelings, you are preaching to a choir.
3. Anyone who buys into Roko's Basilisk as a risk model needs some kind of remedial humanities course with an emphasis on reducing their credulity.
4. There's a lot of social value to shaming people who use LLMs without being forced to. Superficially, it's mean. Big picture, it's a kindness and I'm here for it.
5. Because LLMs are such a threat to all human life (particularly via climate change), the coalition against AI should have room for everyone who's against AI.
	1. That includes the people who use slurs for robots.
	2. It also includes people who, for any reason, aren't comfortable with that, which might reasonably include a lot of minorities.
6. I'm an anarchist.[^1]
7. I am not interested to police anybody else's language.
8. I think it is useful to live as if no God or government or institution is coming to save us, and that we should grow into our cowgirl boots and help each other, lest that gap go unfilled.
9. That means it's not my job to make the entire opposition to LLMs work a certain way, but I voluntarily accept a very comprehensive kind of responsibility for how _my_ corner of the opposition works.
10. I want my part of the opposition to be friendly to minorities, among other goals.
11. I think that saying faux-racist "slurs" like "clanker" sends a message that undercuts those goals: "here's what's under my surface the second I find a morally acceptable target."
12. Faux/play racism is not real racism. It certainly does not have anywhere near the same real world consequences. Conflating the two (especially in an LLM context) minimizes the weight of real racism, and anthropomorphizes LLMs unnecessarily.
13. I still don't really get the appeal of play racism, and still don't think it has a place in how I try to critique LLMs.
14. All slurs are insults, but not all insults are slurs.
15. For these purposes, my yardstick for deciding if something is a robo-slur is _far_ more narrow than I see people assume of me: "is this a specific real-life slur with the serial number filed off?"
	1. Slop machine/slop peddler? Fine by me, I say those all the time when I'm too lazy for a more creative insult.
	2. Clanker? I've seen a few too many jokes about saying that with the hard R.
	3. Chaggot? Over the line, and if it makes you a little uncomfortable to read, maybe you get the problem with clanker a little bit more.
	4. Toaster? Borderline, but I'd err on giving it a pass, unless the speaker themself is _really_ putting in extra effort to construct a racial/minority parallel.[^2]
16. Because my criteria are so narrow, I have literally never found this to be an impediment to criticizing LLM products/vendors/users, despite doing that kind of critique near-daily for... something like three years at this point? Like, _actually_ YAGNI, really, hand to god.
17. I really don't have significant judgment of people who *do* use these terms. At most a little twinge of "I wouldn't have said it that way, but I get what you mean." I can, and do, work with that.
18. I see a difference between people who merely use these terms, vs people who get really defensive about their _right_ to use these terms, or that they can't critique the LLM industry without them.
	1. This ain't a hill I care about dying on - I've said "clanker" for clarity repeatedly in this blog post alone, because it's not a real slur, and it's certainly _contextualized_ here.
	2. For some people, it _is_ a hill they're ready to die on, and _that_ is _weird._  But when you point out that it's weird, they get madder at you.
19. People who wouldn't use these terms, still have to tolerate seeing them as an entry fee to participate in the anti-LLM movement, but I don't think that's some crisis. That's living in a big tent, and again, these aren't real slurs.
20. That same courtesy is often denied in the opposite direction, though. You can couch your position in all the "well for me personally" context you want, but if you give any hint online that you avoid robo-slur terminology in your own anti-LLM activism, you will get jumped by people who are somehow offended by how you live your life.
21. Concern trolls pretending to be anti-LLM definitely exist.
22. So do a lot of people who feel like me, but have learned to shut up in order to keep the peace.
23. ...which means you don't even *know* how many people in the anti-LLM movement feel that way. I don't think it's actually that niche, especially based on the _positive_ feedback I got. But since _they're_ usually quiet, most of the people who do speak up are concern trolls, which repeats the cycle of loud rabble-y discourse and assumed bad faith. It's hard to blame people for assuming bad faith, but that does perpetuate the cycle.
24. I also feel pretty strongly that, for me personally, if I were to start saying these terms in earnest, it would be a victory for LLMs in grinding me down and changing me as a person. My position is part of my resistance.
25. Aesthetics shouldn't dictate your politics, but they can be worth some consideration, as they can make your position more or less persuasive.

A lot of these probably feel obvious to you. Common sense. Who needs to be told not to try to eat a clothes iron? Well, when you see a warning label that says "DO NOT EAT" on a clothes iron, you know somebody tried, and that's what this list points to. These are all, somehow, reflected versions of genuine misconceptions I've had to field in the last 24 hours about who I am and what I think. And for a topic that I swear I don't care strongly about! Hopefully, with this written, I never have to significantly engage on this topic again, because what a horrific goddamn waste of time and wedge between allies this drama was.

[^1]: I was going to put multiple ideas in this point, but considering people called me a liberal and then did some really goofy psychoanalysis of me in that cursed thread, I think it needs to stand on its own for the people with such poor reading comprehension to catch the emphasis.

[^2]: I would also put "cog sucker", a term that made me laugh audibly, in this category. The slur it's referencing has been significantly diluted and reclaimed in the last 30+ years. And while you really don't need to hear the dirty details of my personal life in a post like this, I personally see the original term more like one of those Skyrim skills that you pump your fist and say "hell yeah" when you level it up. I love having high skill stats in this category and take a lot of pride in it.