Ben West


Some of my projects, mostly of the useless variety

We Actually Rate DogsUseless Project

We Rate Dogs is an extremely popular twitter account that purports to rate dogs, but actually gives all of them a score >10/10. In an attempt to make this more rigorous, I used a neural network to evaluate the picture of the dog in the tweet, then created a twitter bot to automatically respond with the dog's actual rating.


The project was… divisive. Has been defunct since the account was blocked by We Rate Dogs October 2020.

Check His HeightUseless Project

There was a brief trend on TikTok of creators attempting to measure the height of their Tinder matches by comparing the person to objects in their background. CheckHisHeight.com uses a computer vision system to automate this process.

Tiktok BeautifulUseless Project

I discovered old documentation from TikTok indicating that part of their recommendation algorithm is based on how attractive actors in each video are. I adapted a neural network from Liang et al. (2018) and created a site which let users evaluate their own attractiveness.


Some users tried to use it to optimize their appearance. Has been defunct since receiving a cease-and-desist letter from TikTok in 2020.

HairToHelp.usUseless Project

Analyzes your face using facial recognition algorithms, and compares your facial proportions to averages, then recommends hairstyles which exaggerate/minimize features based on that comparison.

2Face2FuriousUseless Project

I made a TikTok video about using machine learning to evaluate cosmetics, which was popular. This site lets users run that code on their own images, to identify how well various cosmetic products cover up wrinkles and match their skin color.

Rice Mathematical Purity TestUseless Project

Inspired by the classic Rice Purity Test, this site lets users evaluate their mathematical purity.

Pretty Federal RegisterPossibly Useful Project

All US regulations are published in the Federal Register. These are usually plaintext documents which are thousands of pages long. Pretty Federal Register is a browser extension that adds navigational features like a table of contents, and indicates where in the regulatory hierarchy each section is.

Paranoid BrowsingPossibly Useful Project

Browser extension which browses the web at random the background, to confuse anyone attempting to build a profile of your behavior. This project was briefly featured on the cable news channel RT.

StatistokPossibly Useful Project

I developed a bunch of tools around TikTok analytics as a result of optimizing my own account. Others asked for access to these analytics, and it turned into a company, which was acquired by DE in 2022.

Health eFilingsPossibly Useful Project

Founder and later CTO of Health eFilings, a regulatory compliance company. Acquired by Alpha II/Westfield Capital Partners in 2022.

Social MediasUseless Project

I'm most active on TikTok

Actual MagnusUseless Project

A chess bot which performs at the same level as world champion Magnus Carlson by resigning on the second move.

X-risk Quiz EffectUseless Project

TikTok augmented reality filter that tells you what existential risk you are.

Masculine Contour Guide EffectUseless Project

TikTok augmented reality filter that tells you how to contour your face to look more masculine.

AI Child predictorUseless Project

Augmented reality filter to predict the children two people will have.