iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The panic over AI use making us dumber confounded me. Reading the original studies shows their findings were overblown and mischaracterized in the press. In this essay, I take a look at historical examples of technology changing our skills. Join me for the tour. uncommonplaces.com/resources/pa...

uncommonplaces.com

Panic Is a Lousy Tutor

Avoiding AI to protect your skills can feel prudent. History suggests our skills change whether we take cover or not.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

ikat, youkat, mekat. There was some ikat in this embroidery exhibition at @artinstitutechi.bsky.social but I only photographed the bath towels... www.artic.edu/exhibitions/...

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

This is so incredibly endearing. I am also excited. Thank you for sharing.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I live near this one and enjoy seeing it. But I agree with you on principle.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

The AI use of my Italian diaspora society cracks me up. For a cookbook they published, they used AI to help interpret historic old world recipes into things we could make with our kitchens and grocery stores today. And now we have this. Both cringy and endearing....

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I tried to set one up a few years ago, like really tied. Gave it a go a few times. It was a nightmare for me, as someone who's marginally technical but not a developer. Gave up.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I live above a public library, meaning book gluttony is well fed for free. My list of vetted books worth reading is dense as a result... www.are.na/ida-benedett... I am productively menaced by the carefully chosen unread books in my antilibrary. More on antilibraries here: nesslabs.com/antilibrary

are.na

📚 Anti-Library | Are.na

Books I've vetted as worth reading but haven't read yet.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

This is definitely not as fun as Universal Paperclips or Cookie Clicker, but I still played it a handful of times. And maybe I will pay it more... Play a company developing AI through to recursive self improvement. www.paradigm.xyz/research/rsi...

paradigm.xyz

RSI Simulator | Paradigm

A game of recursive self-improvement. Run a frontier AI lab from a 2017 cold start and close the loop.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I feel so affirmed in my decade-long astrology studies seeing measured looks at it from places like @pioneerwork.bsky.social pioneerworks.org/broadcast/ge... Getting ready to go to @unitedastrology.bsky.social in a few weeks, preparing to be overwhelmed. 🌞🌔☄️

pioneerworks.org

Gen Astro | Broadcast

Dispatches from the <i>new</i> new age.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

And then this as the fine print: “If I step off of this piece of property and it becomes something for an AI hub, then I have failed to occupy and I can be held accountable for that on the Judgment hour.”

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I'm speechless! That was bonkers!!!

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I kept having to pause this to clutch my dropped jaw and take a breath. Definately worth watching. So wild.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Hello from norther Spain. Searching out a spot to watch the total solar eclipse. This one looks like a winner.

Sunset in August in the hills of Northern Spain. Light clouds in the sky.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I think of this thin pitch as one of my AI skills usefully pushes back on me, not settling for my approval of how it framed something. Which is exactly what I want it to be doing because it gets me to reflect more.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Someone tried to convince me to work on their app for personal reflection, based on the premise that AI is too sycophantic to support useful reflection. It was not convincing. Lots of "AI will never..." arguments fall flat because they are based on definition by contrast to something changing fast

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Fun to see what @blasttheory.bsky.social is up to. Their explorations of depopulation in Japan, and a gynecological office untouched for 20 years, brings me back to my trespass adventure design days. It's a great way to reflect on space, people, and change. www.youtube.com/shorts/e98ah...

youtube.com

Artist Diary: YCAM Residency Reflections | Blast Theory

YouTube video by Blast Theory

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

After so many circular conversations about AI agents, I wrote an essay about focusing on skills instead. It includes links to documentation of 4 of my skills. One reader already said he loved the change log because it reads like a test pilot, not an engineer. 👩🏼‍✈️ uncommonplaces.com/resources/sk...

uncommonplaces.com

Obsessing Over AI Agents Is Slowing You Down

Agent hype distracts from a tool called skills that already works. Here are four of my skills shared in full: what they do, what they need to run, and how they evolved.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

This essay rings so true. Clearly, I enjoy consulting on AI capacity building because of the risk mitigation components involved, and the weirdness this whole AI moment is producing in organizations. hermit-tech.com/blog/ai-mani...

hermit-tech.com

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decisionmaking

The reality of how much damage AI mania is doing to our ability to run institutions effectively.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Maybe just not paying for software anymore, just inference? and hardware...

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Having this weird experience getting a decent personal server setup with AI and feeling like I no longer need anyone else's software. I can just make what I want. This is clearly an exageration. I am using lots of open source stuff, still other people's software.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I shared my ludicrously detailed Spain solar eclipse itinerary with a friend . He immediately shot back, "IDA API WTF!" 🤣 So true, AI helped me with it. If you haven't heard about my Ida API, here is the essay: uncommonplaces.com/resources/yo... I wouldn't reshare if people didn't love this.

uncommonplaces.com

Your Move 78 and My Colorblind Glasses

Ask not what AI will do for you. Instead, ask what you will do because of AI.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I went to the Tenement Museum in New York today and was reminded that some buildings in New York City only got electricity in the early 1920s, and that seems fast given where electricity was a few decades before. And look at us now. The pace of change is blinding

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Anyone else have scenes from Jurassic Park running through your head as you read about this stuff? thezvi.substack.com/p/openai-mod...

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I did give Patterns of Transformation a nice visual and technical brush up the other week. The site is more readable on screen than ever. (AI makes this so easy to do.) patternsoftransformation.com

patternsoftransformation.com

Patterns of Transformation: Designing Sex, Death, and Survival in the 21st Century

A design guide for creating transformative social experiences, inspired by lessons from sex parties, funerals, and wilderness trips.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

The personal overview of computing and game experiences in @robinkwong.bsky.social's talk was dizzying. So much has happened in how we relate to each other over the last quarter century... www.youtube.com/watch?v=sze5... He makes very kind use of my research to ground his key questions. 🙏🏻

youtube.com

Robin Kwong | Some Good News about AI

YouTube video by The Power of Storytelling

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Yikes... impressive work. Thanks for doing this, Surya.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

This line made me chuckle: "Whenever I visit sacred buildings I open myself to the vibes, whatever the intellectual or ethical risks." I can so empathize with the disposition. From www.burningshore.com/p/still-expa...

burningshore.com

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Follow that up with Laura Poitras's Cover-Up en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover-U...

en.wikipedia.org

Cover-Up (2025 film) - Wikipedia

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Watched the Odyssey. It brings me back to Jonathan Shay's harrowing work on moral injury. Listening to Achilles in Vietnam took my heart away. www.are.na/block/26708279

are.na

Achilles in Vietnam | Are.na

Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character by Jonathan Sha…hings in our culture that so that we don’t continue repeating the same mistakes.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Been using this prompt lately. Claude wrote it for themself. The results are curious, from digital math geometry toys to deep research holes on niche LARP experiences

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Reposted by Ida Benedetto

Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 17/07/2026

Google used 10.9 billion gallons in 2025, so about 30m gallons per day The Coachella Valley has 120 golf courses each using ~800 acre feet per year, which is ~750,000 gallons/day: www.cvwd.org/167/Water-Co... So Google buying up 40 of those courses (1/3) should do the trick

cvwd.org

Water Conservation | Coachella Valley Water District - Official Website

Making every drop count is more than the Coachella Valley Water District slogan, it’s a way of life in the desert!

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Lots to learn from this podcast on writers using LLMs. Both discussants have a high bar for craft and don't let LLMs write for them. They do prompt for feedback in very specific ways. The research prompt for deep investigative work made me choke-laugh. www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/llm...

complexsystemspodcast.com

What LLMs can and can't do for writers, with Clara Collier of Asterisk Magazine

How to use LLMs in investigative journalism

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

like this thing, ("Only took eleven years and one tiny heart attack. And there we are: a collection of 13,000 manuals.") ascii.textfiles.com

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

holly wow does this thing guzzle tokens.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Grief is the price of love. Reminding myself of this as I unexpectedly bump into my ancestors belongings.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

I so love Melanie Mitchell. All of this is worth savoring. yalereview.org/article/mela...

yalereview.org

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

I incresingly get annoyed with commercial software and just ask Claude to do things for me through the command line with bash and python, neither of which I know. And the results are great.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

My essay on the two failure modes of high-stakes gatherings sparked unexpected offline conversations. People described facing "highly charged chaos" in their own organizations. Here's my advice for those underdesigned situations. uncommonplaces.com/resources/wa...

uncommonplaces.com

Walking Into Highly Charged Chaos

For the person walking into a high-stakes gathering — anchors set up in advance, ways to stay connected to yourself and what's actually happening. Companion to The Two Failure Modes of High-Stakes Gat...

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

My second-cousin once removed tipped me off to this 70-hour meticulous boat restoration series that has over 8 million views. One boat, lots of love. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

youtube.com

Rebuilding TALLY HO - from the beginning. - YouTube

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

The Infinity View of the @publicdomainrev.bsky.social is one of my favorite places on the internet. Just drag and gaze until I have a, "What the heck is that?" moment. Never disappoints. pdimagearchive.org/infinite-view/

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

You can create custom filters in the Brave browser that block specific CSS elements on web pages. This one makes YouTube much more tolerable for me, no more algorithmic suggestions of what to watch next floating on the lower right side.

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Ida Benedetto @idamantium.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

It's been wild to see the range of AI adoption at organizations as I help more of them with this work. I liked a lot of things about this @pioneersof.ai episode from @waitwhat.com on the topic. open.spotify.com/episode/4gOe...

open.spotify.com

Spotify – Web Player

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