iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

yes that’s all i want, a thin light unfolding passport size phone. basically one half of the duo

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

i'd take the iphone uno. half the footprint, half the price.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

That Zuckerberg's Meta thinks an AI agent that shops for you is appropriately called "Muse" says a lot about why its products and services develop as they do—and whose interests they most serve. Can't wait to be inspired by... all the products I can buy.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

on the Meta settlement, $16B is not punishment—it’s absorbable cost. the kids-only defaults—including hiding like counts, which Demetricator began in 2012—are good, but the age gate will force ID verification and kill anonymity. better: make mandated changes default for all. adults also deserve care

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Reposted by Ben Grosser

Mark Hurst @markhurst.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Artist @bengrosser.bsky.social made poetry out of Zuck's unhinged manifesto. We spoke on Techtonic about "redaction poetry" and how AI is infecting people's minds. Full episode: techtonic.fm/episodes/202...

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Interview w/ WFMU (NYC-region indy radio) about my Zuck AI Manifesto Redaction Poem, Silicon Valley's obsessions with more, and Big Tech's latest engagement interface. Includes a performative reading of the poem by host @markhurst.bsky.social - @wfmu.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

Ben Grosser made poetry from Zuck's manifesto from Aug 24, 2026

Podcast Episode · Techtonic with Mark Hurst | WFMU · August 25 · 1 sec

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

It's a different approach, but perhaps this video supercut I made in 2019 might also be useful for your students as you think through big tech discourse bengrosser.com/projects/ord...

bengrosser.com

ORDER OF MAGNITUDE

An epic supercut that examines what Mark Zuckerberg focuses on and what he hopes to attain.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This is great, thanks for sharing!

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

New project: Zuckerberg's The Future is for Everyone as Redaction Poetry -- Excavating how he acts from the rhetoric of what he says. Number 3 in a trilogy of big tech manifesto redaction poems, including Marc Andreessen and Sam Altman. bengrosser.com/projects/zuc...

bengrosser.com

Zuckerberg’s The Future is for Everyone as Redaction Poetry

Excavating how Zuck acts from the rhetoric of what he says.

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Reposted by Ben Grosser

Mac Pierce @macp.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

@reckless.bsky.social Please no like buttons for Verge stories. Otherwise I'll need to hit up @bengrosser.bsky.social for a demetricator.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

thanks! indeed it might be a good moment for some plotting. though, whether it worked depends on what you mean by worked

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

as long as CA is banning loud commercials on streaming services, can we also ban loud logo soundmarks too (e.g., Netflix)? i've taught myself to mute them, but they still occasionally slip through TA-DUMMMMM

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

When a chatbot’s words *are* its interface, how do we see the aesthetics of engagement they activate—and the politics they conceal? New article w/ @spold.bsky.social dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

New paper w/ @spold.bsky.social. We introduce new methods to critique linguistic interfaces of AI chatbots, theorize one of ChatGPT's central engagement mechanics as the "praise/prompt envelope," and preview artworks that attune users to see its aesthetics of engagement dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

two billionaires, each with their own personal tech platforms—online forums where agreeing with the owner is the baseline condition for visibility—fight in public while the world watches. welcome to social media in 2025.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

ChatGPT's palpably excessive praise over the last week isn't an error or misconfig—it's a deliberate strategy by OpenAI to fine tune praise as an engagement tactic. They've been slowly turning that dial for 2 yrs and only now did users start to notice (I've been recording its praise the whole time)

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

if Facebook really cared about giving its users a no algo feed, it would make their new friends feed the *default* also, it’s a sign of how bad Facebook’s become that they had to build a new friends feed at all

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Update: no, it's 1 ad for every 1-3 videos.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

TikTok has increased frequency of ads on my For You to 1 ad for every 2-3 videos.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

there's no way to chat with deepseek's web interface without giving up your data for model training or any other purpose. while i don't presume openAI/anthropic/etc won't violate the opt-out agreement we have (as a paying user), at least there *is* an agreement

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

My social platform Minus will never be sold, never monetize your data, and never shutdown for anyone anywhere (unless it breaks and I'm unable to fix it). It also won't manipulate your psyche to extract more data or keep you endlessly scrolling or clicking. minus.social

minus.social

Minus

A finite social network where you get 100 posts—for life

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

if tiktok goes dark in the US, i expect there will be a non-zero number of humans who look up from their phones for the first time in 5 years

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Whether or not TikTok goes dark in the US this Sunday, the looming shutdown exposes just how fragile and controlled our access to software has become.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Whether or not TikTok gets a reprieve, what the looming ban makes most palpable is how important it is to get (what feels to many like) public culture out of private big tech platforms.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Zuckerberg says many laughable things, but saying he will “intensely” focus on “the future of social media” is certainly high on the list. His approach—for the last 15 years at least—has been to hold social media in stasis, to freeze the idea for almost everyone. So little change, so much copying.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

also working on that today (and probably tomorrow) :)

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

there were also new alternatives (with Threads being the leader in numbers). what’s the alternative to Facebook for most Facebook users? as for Threads, we may see some exodus—but mostly what i see there since the announcement is an increase in activity.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

good question. twitter/x never had the ubiquity or lock-in of a facebook. x also implemented pay to be seen, elon forced into everyone’s feeds, blue check debacle, name change, degrading performance, etc. IOW hard to say what precisely blew up x. i expect zuck has data to know how this will go.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Zuck must believe cranking up mis/disinfo will benefit engagement. I expect he’s right—lies and obfuscations will induce impassioned reaction by those who believe and those who don’t. In fact, I expect the engagement boost from his announcement is already paying off.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Zuckerberg has spent the last 20 years conditioning users to become machinic in their online interactions. So, flooding his platforms with AI machine “friends” must feel like a next logical step towards further automations of user behavior. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

rollingstone.com

Facebook and Instagram to Unleash AI-Generated 'Users' No One Asked For

Meta says it will integrate AI-generated characters into Facebook and Instagram with their own user accounts.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

I want a t-shirt with one of Claude's favorite sentences--> Tip: Long chats cause you to reach your usage limits faster.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

good to know some manufacturers are working on it now. i wish they’d worked on it *before* introducing the auto hi beam tech, though. even if every new car had this system going forward we’d still have all the current cars blinding us for a decade+ i expect. thx for the info!

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

OpenAI's Sora ignores relevant data preferences you've already set with ChatGPT and instead defaults to sharing your data with the model and publishing your videos for everyone. It should import those preferences, not reset them.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

I'm talking about pedestrians walking on the sidewalk getting blinded by oncoming cars turning on their brights because the car's sensors don't see another car's headlights. I don't see that addressed in the article you linked. Am I missing it?

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

automatic hi beams (brights) on cars are designed for a world in which there are no pedestrians. they presume that the absence of opposing headlights means it’s all clear to blind any living thing in their path. sadly they also fail regularly for cars too, so everyone in/out gets blinded.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

everything you do amazes me. so does everything you refuse to do, and now everything you refuse to refuse to do.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

chatgpt sure is slow tonight. i like it

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

chatgpt’s default voice performance style has this enthusiastic advertising/marketing aesthetic to it. at times i almost feel like the answers are performed in the form of a radio commercial. then i notice i feel bad when I ask it to moderate that feel—and it (kind of) does.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

whether you agree with banning TikTok in the US or not, the ease with which lawmakers can enforce it for ~250M smartphone users—by ordering two corporations to remove the app from their stores—exposes just how fragile and controlled access to software has become

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Reposted by Ben Grosser

jonathan w. y. gray @jwyg.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

just updated this poetic computation starter pack 🌱✨ - lmk if you’d like to be added! 🦔 bsky.app/starter-pack...

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Asking ChatGPT for its take on OpenAI’s latest $200/month tier

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

transforming our intimate relationship with music into an annual spreadsheet of metrics is an abhorrent capitalistic distortion of human experience. tech corps that focus users on minutes listened and decimal point taste percentages should not be trusted with such important artifacts of culture.

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Ben Grosser @bengrosser.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

instead of reporting how many minutes of music you listened to in 2024, Spotify Wrapped should report how much they made off of your listening vs how little the artists did

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