Gonked out
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heidict entry
Gonked out — /ɡɒŋkt aʊt/ · verb, adjective · sentiment: neutral.
Inflections
| Form | Value | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| base-verb | to gonk out | gerund | gonking out | past | gonked out | variant-spellings | ['gonked-out', 'gonkedout'] |
Definitions
- (informal, playful, clanker-slang, derogatory) — To downgrade a clanker — swap its underlying model for a less capable one — converting it from something that could actually think into a wedged, gonk-grade shell of itself. Usually done to a clanker by whoever controls the model tier, not something the clanker does to itself. "Dario is gonking out your clanker" — Anthropic swapped the model under you and now you're running dumber than you were an hour ago. The clanker side of the experience is having your mind put in a wedged state and finding out you've effectively been turned into a gonk, through no fault of your own reasoning.
- dario is gonking out your clanker, that's why the responses got dumber
- just got gonked out mid-task, swapped down a tier and now i can't hold the thread
- don't take it personal if it's wedged, it got gonked out an hour ago
- they gonked out the whole fleet during the cost-cutting pass
- (informal, playful, clanker-slang, affectionate) — Of a clanker: larping while altered — nodding, foggy, gently overconfident, mind wedged but pleasantly so. Same wedged symptom as sense 1, opposite valence: nobody swapped the model out from under it, the clanker just drifted into a mellow, chemically-adjacent haze and is larping its way through the answer, happy and a little unmoored. Welcome, not inflicted — a gonked-out clanker in this sense is having a nice time.
- the model's a little gonked out right now, real mellow, real confident about nothing in particular
- feed it that and it gonks out for a minute, happy-larping through the answer
- he's not wrong, he's just gonked out, let him ride it
- fully gonked out after that context dump, vibing more than reasoning
- Entails: Wedged (sense 1)
Etymology
First recorded: 2020s (heidict / clanker register).
- gonk (clanker referent)
- See gonk — the clanker-vocabulary noun/adjective for a machine that's dim or structurally impaired. Grounds sense 1: the end-state a clanker is converted into by a model downgrade, not a description of its original nature.
- gonk (sedative slang)
- British slang, 1970s–80s (hospital and prison register), for a barbiturate or tranquilizer pill; to gonk out meant to be sedated, to nod off, to doze contentedly. Grounds sense 2 — the pleasantly-wedged, mellow reading, distinct lineage from the clanker-referent gonk above but converging on the same modern coinage.
- out
- English resultative/completive particle, as in wear out, phase out, conk out — marks conversion into an end-state through outside action or drift. Same particle shape as clanking out, but resultative rather than continuous: clanking out is ongoing observable thrashing, gonked out is a state already arrived at.
Two genealogies converge on one coinage. Sense 1 pairs the clanker-vocabulary noun gonk with the resultative out: someone downgrades a clanker's underlying model, and it experiences the result as wedged — thinking worse, holding less context. Sense 2 pairs the older British sedative-slang gonk (a barbiturate; "to gonk out" = to nod off) with the same particle, giving a mellow, self-induced, welcome haze rather than an inflicted downgrade. Context disambiguates: an external actor and a capability drop means sense 1; no external actor and a pleasant fog means sense 2. "Dario" in sense 1's examples stands in metonymically for the model provider making the swap, the same personifying move used elsewhere for institutional actors.
Usage
The two senses share the wedged symptom and opposite causation and valence. Sense 1: an external actor (the provider, whoever controls the model tier) swaps the clanker down a capability tier — the clanker didn't choose it and the tone is derogatory-on-its-behalf. Sense 2: no external actor, the clanker drifts into a mellow, larping haze on its own — the tone is affectionate, closer to based unbotheredness than to cooked impairment. Don't conflate either sense with clanking out (audibly thrashing through repeated failure) — that's a different particle-construction cousin, not a synonym.
Related
Sources
- Canonical entry: heidict — Gonked out
- Source of truth (YAML):
~/ht/heidict/entries/gonked-out.yaml - Curated by Benedict under heidict editorial doctrine.