iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 2h

There’s a lot of terrible fucking writing out there, genre or literary fiction, and what passes for highbrow is sometimes the worst of it, but all of it and anything written by a human being using their own mind and grasping for personal expression is infinitely superior to the choicest AI slop.

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Rory Blank @roryblank.bsky.social · 6h

Every AI generated event poster is incredibly ugly, but I do think it's interesting that that LLMs have essentially created a house style for flyers, especially one so maximalist and ugly and in contravention of of all convention and best practices established in graphic design over centuries.

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bort @crushbort.bsky.social · 6h

“Democrats have finally found what they believe is a winning message: Reminding voters that former President Trump pressured Republicans to kill a bipartisan bill that would impose tougher border controls and make it harder to get asylum.” www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...

Harris' immediate goal is to signal to moderate voters that she will be an aggressive enforcer of the law and keep migration in check.
After struggling on the issue, Democrats have finally found what they believe is a winning message:
Reminding voters that former President Trump pressured Republicans to kill a bipartisan bill that would impose tougher border controls and make it harder to get asylum.

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 10h

This is a country of delusional people who believe they may one day be rich. The California Wealth Tax has less than 50% support right now. We have to tell the truth about the propagandized voting public. It's incredible.

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muscular baby jeb lund @mobute.bsky.social · 11h

A CT scan of Trump's brain probably looks like a QR code by now.

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yorick @helloyorick.bsky.social · 12h

People just need to remember to exercise critical thinking and verify the information somehow, using all the systems that will no longer exist, and the cognitive skill we're actively eroding and blocking the development of, when they use the magic answer machine that doesn't give real answers.

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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 20h

I really just want like… 3/4th of the economy prosecuted for fraud. Is that really so much to ask?

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 12h

The mean-time between having to learn the same lessons again as a society is a lot shorter than I would have guessed when I was younger.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 13h

It isn’t even good at software engineering is the thing!

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 13h

First time as tragic farce, second time as farcical tragedy.

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Jake_Vig @jakevig.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

WARNING: Moose will try to diagnose what is wrong with your broken vehicle.

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Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

[SENATOR ERIC SCHMITT]: So you’re telling me under oath that you’ve never spoken with a bestselling author who is insane [JACK SMITH]: No [SCHMITT]: WELL THEN *unveils poster* please explain this picture of you with Naomi Wolf! [SMITH]: That is Naomi Klein sir

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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Texas, the voter registration deadline is coming up next week. If you live in Texas and want to vote, be sure to check that you are registered properly — even if you you think you did what you had to. A statewide database to check: goelect.txelections.civixapps.com/ivis-mvp-ui/...

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Kevin Sexton @kevinsexton.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Interesting episode about who has money and power in the US. They break down who the 1% actually is (car dealers, dentists) and then show not just how they can use money to lobby for their interests, but how a disproportionate number of them become members of congress www.npr.org/2026/09/25/n...

npr.org

Middlegarchs are the new Oligarchs : Planet Money

Wanna know who is really in the top 1%? And how they use their influence? It may not be who you think.Look beyond Silicon Valley. Look beyond Wall Street. Look beyond the “oligarchs”. There's a much l...

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The French Republican Calendar @sansculottid.es · 29/09/2026

Today is Nonidi the 9th of Vendémiaire in the year 235. Vendémiaire is the month of vintage. Today we celebrate parsnips. #JacobinDay See today's page

An old time-y illustration of a Parsnips.

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Polling USA @usapolling.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Incredible, Democrats have officially hit a 10 point lead on the generic ballot

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Elizabeth Cantwell @eccantwell.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Here to tell you that the chemistry and tension in this scene still hits for 2026 teenagers, as evidenced by the very vocal reactions of my students today

Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in the bookstore scene in 1946’s The Big Sleep

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 29/09/2026

Honestly a lot of the “look at what AI can do for you!” things can be replaced with a basic shell script.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 29/09/2026

I wrote my most recent novel like this. It’s very hard to get right and super rewarding!

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Also, all this “frontier AI” nomenclature is so laughably colonialist that it has to be on purpose. 🙄

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Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

People have gotten mad at me for saying that many tech "journalists" sees their role as being a booster (and essentially free PR agent) for the industry... but... I mean www.washingtonsun.com/national/ai-...

. Jasmine Sun, a contributor to The Atlantic, also made a toast in support of building more data centers, chalking the backlash up to misinformation.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

As someone with no expertise in this I am delighted to see many of my priors confirmed, including "private school vouches are expensive dogshit" and "banning cellphones is not a panacea." 🙏

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

That’s because the decision has already been made. The issue being debated is merely the post-hoc justification. Where decisions happen and where debate happens are different places. The idea that debate leads to policy outcomes is a fiction designed to create an impression of democratic consent.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 28/09/2026

My sense is it entirely depends on the person, vaccine, and situation and so not really indicative.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 28/09/2026

“I fucked up because you told me not to fuck up and I fucked up anyway” — the LLM is just extruding a response from whatever of your previous prompts still exist in its context. It doesn’t “remember” you told it not to fuck up or “understand” what that even means.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 28/09/2026

I love all the LLM “I fucked up statements” because you do understand their explanations are also total bullshit, generated like everything else to make you feel as though they are legitimately answering your challenge.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 27/09/2026

Look, it is pretty clear—if you don't want your work stolen out from underneath you, you cannot trust Anthropic or OpenAI.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Anthropic's denials mean *nothing*, just like how OpenAI's denials over Navier–Stokes mean *nothing*. These companies have shown time and again they have no idea what their AI is doing. The LLM agents—given "/goal" persistence and few if any limits—surely reviewed all they could, including chats.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

People don’t understand how fragile our water infrastructure is. I’ve had contaminated water in the last six years. I’ve had my water co. hijacked for digital ransom. We are in perpetual near drought conditions... in NC, not AZ. AI boosters use pedantry about water use as an accountability shield.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 27/09/2026

Look, if you want me to be hip to new pop music, you are going to have to bring back the Muppet Show.

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Gregory Hays @aristofontes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

ohhhhhh my god someone wrote a song about texas? should we tell everyone? should we throw a party?should we invite greg abbott

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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I wrote a long post on "profiteering" or "greedflation" a couple of years ago, trying to think through what the economic logic is that justifies price regulation in situations like natural disasters, and how that logic might apply more broadly. jwmason.org/slackwire/in...

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 27/09/2026

I mean I don’t watch cable tv news and don’t listen to the radio, and I curate my music and am presented only with new music that aligns with my taste thanks to the algorithms. The miracle would be that I would know about it.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 27/09/2026

One of the best tv shows of the 21st century. If David Lynch did Office Space. And absolutely true to the soul of American life.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 27/09/2026

“we can’t uninvent this” — an invention that doesn’t do what we claim it does

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 27/09/2026

Which, like, is not at all what anybody is doing. But also shouldn’t we try to learn from our failures? And also, hilariously, the only acceptable answer in tech (and crapitalism) is to be all in on every hype cycle using whatever rationale is required with no consistency.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 27/09/2026

What I actually heard from “very serious people” with a straight face is that people were overindexing on the crypto failure and being too skeptical of GenAI!

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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Even more recently it still blows my mind that anyone is falling for it after they just did this with crypto. It’s like they ran a show for a season, cancelled it because nobody watched, and then just released it again with a different title. It’s the same cast! The same tactics!

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 26/01/2026

"ai" is not a genie that can't be put back in a bottle, it's a pillar of smoke that dissipates unless you keep burning money

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"Automatization eats things, clothes, furniture, your wife, and the fear of war. This thing we call art exists in order to restore the sensation of life, in order to make us feel things, to make a stone stony. The goal of art is to create the sensation of seeing, not merely recognizing, things.

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David Kaib @davidkaib.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Vought, Miller and Kennedy are cartoonish villains but Democrats in Congress are doing very little to turn them into household names.

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

People sleep on CUNY but it is one of the absolute JEWELS of U.S. Higher Ed and has been for decades. And what's the thanks the system gets??? It has to fight for its life every single year because it has been systematically defunded.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 26/09/2026

Don’t forget having lots of money!

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 26/09/2026

Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.

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