Surprise - It's Not a Toaster

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Jun 2026

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Discover the realm where digital expertise meets candid conversations on "Surprise - It’s Not a Toaster" - a podcast led by digital experts and technophiles Ed Bennett and co-host Chris Boyer. Together, they venture into the fabric of online experiences, dissecting annoyances and irritations about navigating the modern online world. In each episode, they unveil contemporary tools, technologies, and software solutions, providing a firsthand exploration of what's shaping the digital landscape and the hosts challenge the limits of GenAI, where questions are posed to various LLMs, illuminating the interplay between human expertise and machine-generated insights. Tune in to navigate the digital maze, equip yourself with valuable insights, and engage in compelling discussions that bridge the gap between the human and digital worlds.

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June 4, 202635 min

We’re Running Out of Letters

You're not bad at remembering drug names. You're listening in on a conversation you were never the audience for. Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer take on the engineered weirdness of prescription drug names, inspired by a recent 99% Invisible episode on the topic. The visual silhouettes, the syllable structures, the FDA-cleared distinctiveness, all of it is built for the pharmacist on the prescription pad, not the patient on the couch. A 1997 FDA broadcast advertising guidance turned that internal communication into the TV ad you're now supposed to memorize. Bimzelx and Ebglyss aren't trying to sound like sci-fi villains. The namespace is running out. The SNAT Book Club continues with Chapters 3 and 4 of The AI Con by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna. Chapter 3 traces the hidden labor inside every AI system. Chapter 4 follows that same machinery into a New York City chatbot that told residents it was legal for landlords to discriminate, and into UnitedHealth's nH Predict algorithm with a 90% error rate, used anyway. Tech rec: the 99% Invisible podcast itself. Especially good for the healthcare folks. In the AI test, Ed fed the full set of drug naming rules to Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini and asked each to name a hypothetical cat allergy shot. One suggestion accidentally invoked a 1979 horror film. Letters running out. Labor running cheap. Care running dry. Surprise, it's not a toaster. References & Further Reading Drug Naming 99% Invisible Episode 667, "Ask Your Doctor About": https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/667-ask-your-doctor-about/ FDA Draft Guidance, Consumer-Directed Broadcast Advertisements, August 1997 (Federal Register): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1997-08-12/html/97-21291.htm GAO Report on FDA Oversight of DTC Advertising Since the 1997 Guidance: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-03-177.pdf The AI Con (Chapters 3 and 4) The AI Con by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, Harper, 2025: https://thecon.ai/ The Markup: NYC's MyCity AI Chatbot Still Active Despite Encouraging Illegal Behavior: https://themarkup.org/news/2024/04/02/malfunctioning-nyc-ai-chatbot-still-active-despite-widespread-evidence-its-encouraging-illegal-behavior The Markup: Mamdani to Kill the NYC AI Chatbot We Caught Telling Businesses to Break the Law: https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2026/01/30/mamdani-to-kill-the-nyc-ai-chatbot-we-caught-telling-businesses-to-break-the-law STAT News: UnitedHealth Pushed Employees to Follow an Algorithm to Cut Off Medicare Patients' Rehab Care: https://www.statnews.com/2023/11/14/unitedhealth-class-action-lawsuit-algorithm-medicare-advantage/ CBS News: UnitedHealth Lawsuit on nH Predict Algorithm: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unitedhealth-lawsuit-ai-deny-claims-medicare-advantage-health-insurance-denials/ Find Us Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/ Ed Bennett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edbennett/ Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com Ed Bennett on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/edbennett.bsky.social Chris Boyer on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social

May 11, 202638 min

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

A meme is the most efficient way to move an idea. It is also the least accountable. Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer trace what memes actually do: compress complicated thinking, strip the citations, outrun every fact check. From the Marilyn Monroe line she never said to the Einstein insanity quote he never wrote to the Voltaire defense Voltaire didn't author, the accuracy was stripped out by design. Then the format gets eaten by the same companies it was making fun of. KC Green's "this is fine" dog sells as a Funko Pop. Most of the brands using the image have paid him nothing. The SNAT Book Club opens its next read: The AI Con by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, published May 2025. Synthetic text extruding machines, p(doom) theater at the Schumer AI Insight Forum, plus the real harms happening right now while policymakers argue about extinction. In the AI Test, four models attempt Rick Polito-style movie summaries. Some had teeth. Claude played it safe. Memes. Misattribution. Hype as misdirection. Allegory all the way down. Mentions from the Show: "Distracted Boyfriend", Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distracted_boyfriend "This Is Fine" / KC Green's Gunshow, Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunshow_(webcomic) A decade on, the creator of "This is fine" wants to put the famous dog to rest, NPR - https://www.npr.org/2023/01/16/1149232763/this-is-fine-meme-anniversary-gunshow-web-comic "Insanity quote" misattributed to Einstein, Quote Investigator - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/ The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want, Harper / Penguin Random House - https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-ai-con-emily-m-benderalex-hanna \ "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots", Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, Mitchell (2021) - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922 Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) - https://www.dair-institute.org/ Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/ Ed Bennett on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/edbennett/

April 16, 202641 min

Prediction: The House Always Wins

Every decade, the same behavioral design gets a new name and a fresh regulatory fight. Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer trace the structural lineage connecting online gambling, gamified stock trading, and prediction markets — three industries that borrowed the same dopamine playbook from the same design handbook. From the UIGEA's last-minute insertion into a port security bill to Robinhood's confetti to Kalshi's "this is not gambling" documentation, the pattern is consistent. The terminology changes with each iteration. The house edge doesn't. Ed recommends using Claude as a reading companion for dense books, demonstrated with Blindsight by Peter Watts — a live annotation layer that drills down until the concept clicks. In the AI test, Chris ran a live experiment in what the hosts call black hat AEO: a fabricated blog post linking three healthcare digital leaders named Chris to a St. Paul curling competition. Gemini and ChatGPT surfaced it as an authenticated fact. Claude returned nothing. Forecasting. Gambling. Confetti by any other name. The house always wins. Surprise — it's not a toaster. Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Ed Bennett on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Ed Bennett of BlueSky Chris Boyer on BlueSky

March 26, 202639 min

Someone Updated Your Book While You Were Reading It

The book you downloaded is not the book the author wrote. It might have been quietly sensitivity-edited. It might now contain brand references the author never put there. Or, in the case of Pretty Little Liars, it just started mentioning TikTok in a scene from 2006. Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer dig into the silent modification of digital books - retroactive sensitivity edits, undisclosed product placement, and authors finding out through their fans that someone rewrote their work without asking. Bowdlerization isn't new, but it used to require effort. Now it takes about thirty seconds and nobody has to tell you. Then it's the fifth and final installment of the Enshitification series: Cory Doctorow's argument that this is a policy problem, not a technology problem, and that we have actually solved versions of it before. Tech rec: vibe coding, and what Ed built with Claude Code in two hours without writing a single line of code himself. In the AI test, Chris debuts "Surprise - It's Not a Post" - a social media translator that degrades any thought into its most stereotypically obnoxious platform version. Ed's dog walk provided the source material. Bowdlerized. Monetized. Enshitified. Surprise - It's Not a Toaster. Mentions from the Show: Pretty Little Liars fans notice updated pop culture references on Kindle: https://dailydot.com/pretty-little-liars-updated-pop-culture-references I won't buy another Kindle book until this shady practice ends: https://www.pocket-lint.com/kindle-problem-story-changes/ Roald Dahl revision controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl_revision_controversy Roald Dahl: a brief history of sensitivity edits to children's literature: https://theconversation.com/roald-dahl-a-brief-history-of-sensitivity-edits-to-childrens-literature-200500 The Bowdlers wanted to clean up Shakespeare, not become a byword for censorship: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bowdlers-wanted-clean-shakespeare-not-become-byword-censorship-180963945/ Bowdlerize (definition): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bowdlerize Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It: https://www.versobooks.com/products/3341-enshittification Enshittification (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Ed Bennett on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Ed Bennett of BlueSky Chris Boyer on BlueSky

March 26, 202639 min

Hard to Swallow News (and the Market That Broke It)

Getting real news shouldn’t feel like decoding a puzzle designed by someone who doesn’t want you to solve it. This week, Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer take on the modern news machine - from broadcast consolidation and partisan drift to the clickbait headline race and the increasingly buried links that pass for journalism on social platforms. If it feels harder to find verified, trustworthy information, that’s not paranoia. It’s structural. Then it’s Part 4 of the Enshitification book series: What Broke the Market (and Why It Stayed Broken). The hosts dig into anti-monopoly history, regulatory capture, app store toll booths, and how “innovation” quietly became code for consolidation. In the AI Test, they put artificial intelligence to work in a very real-world scenario: creating a commercial from scratch using only AI. Streaming is fragmented. News is noisy. Platforms are entrenched. Surprise - it's not a toaster. Mentions from the Show: 6 companies own 90% of American media Online headlines shift from concise to click-worthy Majority of Influencers Share Unverified Information, Study Reveals Enshitification book Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Ed Bennett on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Ed Bennett of BlueSky Chris Boyer on BlueSky

January 28, 202636 min

The Algorithm Owns How We Think We Think

In this episode of Surprise - It’s Not a Toaster, Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer take on the growing frustration around algorithms. Not just how often they change, but how little control users actually have over what they’re being shown. From TikTok and Meta to Google and YouTube, personalization has become opaque, unpredictable, and increasingly unsettling. You don’t choose your feed anymore. You inherit it.The conversation explores why algorithmic curation now feels less like relevance and more like manipulation, and why the real tension isn’t what’s being served — it’s not knowing why. As platforms continue to tune for engagement and growth, the sense of ownership over one’s digital experience keeps slipping away.The SNAT Book Club continues with the third installment of Cory Doctorow’s Enshitification, digging into the economic engines that push platforms to optimize themselves into garbage. It’s the chapter where incentives, advertising, and investor pressure finally explain why everything feels louder, worse, and harder to leave.In the AI test, the hosts ask generative models to do something deceptively simple: guess their age. The results are revealing in all the wrong ways. And as a bonus recommendation, they explore how AI can actually be useful - not as a filter, but as a lens - offering deeper insights into the television and movies we’re already watching.Algorithms everywhere. Control nowhere. Mentions from the Show: Enshitification book Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Ed Bennett on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Ed Bennett of BlueSky Chris Boyer on BlueSky

December 26, 202536 min

Wrapped With a Bow (and a Lock-In Clause)

In this end-of-year episode of Surprise - It’s Not a Toaster, Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer take on the annual ritual of being “Wrapped.” What began as a fun reflection has turned into a full-blown platform performance review, with apps across music, social, productivity, fitness, and even calendars proudly telling you just how much of your life they consumed. Because nothing says personal growth like a branded slide deck about your screen time. The conversation unpacks how year-end recaps quietly celebrate overuse, encourage public self-promotion, and reinforce platform lock-in. It’s the perfect Boxing Day episode: the wrapping paper is gone, the boxes are everywhere, and you’re left sorting through what you actually wanted versus what just showed up. In part two, the SNAT Book Club continues with Enshitification by Cory Doctorow, diving into how platforms trap users, businesses, and regulators through lock-in, dependency, and the steady erosion of exit ramps. It’s a clean explanation of why leaving bad platforms feels harder every year and why things don’t improve on their own. And because it wouldn’t be SNAT without testing the limits of artificial intelligence, the episode closes with a lighthearted experiment in whether today’s AI tools can offer genuinely useful guidance when faced with a very seasonal, very awkward real-world problem - with mixed results. Streaming. Wrapped. Trapped. Boxed in. Happy Boxing Day. Mentions from the Show: SNL - “Uber Eats Wrapped” skit Husk IRL YouTube page Enshitification book Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Ed Bennett on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Ed Bennett of BlueSky Chris Boyer on BlueSky

December 12, 202531 min

The Holiday Gift Guide Nobody Wanted

In this very special holiday episode, Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer crack open the shimmering, pine-scented world of modern “smart” gifts — which somehow manage to be both futuristic and profoundly unnecessary. Think of it as a retro 1970s holiday catalog, except every item inside requires WiFi, a firmware update, and a dedicated support group. First up: the PetLibro smart litter box, a device so advanced it may have opinions about your cat. Then there’s the Ember mug, for people who believe hot beverages should come with patch notes. Add in the Bluetooth pen — the perfect gift for someone who wants handwriting to be laggy — and the pièce de résistance: a WiFi-enabled grill that texts you about your brisket like a needy coworker. As always, the chaos of the digital age provides the setup for Part Two: the kickoff of the SNAT Book Club, featuring Cory Doctorow’s Enshitification. Ed and Chris break down the big idea behind why everything online slowly curdles over time, from platforms to products to your holiday wish list. It’s festive. It’s ridiculous. It’s the only holiday gift guide brave enough to say: maybe none of this should exist. Mentions from the Show: PetLibro smart litter box Ember smart coffee mug C-TAP smart Bluetooth fountain pen Briskit Grillsx Enshitification book Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Ed Bennett on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Ed Bennett of BlueSky Chris Boyer on BlueSky

November 20, 202529 min

How Streaming Became Cable, But Worse

Hosts Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer face the modern entertainment apocalypse: streaming content. What started as freedom from cable has devolved into a fragmented, confusing, overpriced mess where your favorite show is always on the one service you canceled last month. They unpack the chaos behind subscription juggling, studio feuds (yes, YouTube TV vs. ESPN/Disney, we see you), and why your monthly bill now looks suspiciously like 2008 Comcast. This week’s recommendation is for Cory Doctorow’s new book “Enshitification” - a takedown of how platforms rot from the inside. The hosts then kick-off the official “Surprise - It’s Not a Toaster” Book Club - asking readers to follow along from home. In the AI Stump, they use various GenAI tools to create a new word describing the fear of leaving something behind. Tune in to find out which tool - ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity - created the best term. SNAT50: Streaming is broken, AI is weird, books are angry, and now we have a new neurosis. Mentions from the Show: Enshitification book Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Ed Bennett on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Ed Bennett of BlueSky Chris Boyer on BlueSky

October 23, 202524 min

(How) Will AI Kill Us?

Ed Bennett and Chris Boyer open the episode with a semi-rant on the AI marketing hype machine - billions pouring in, big-tech companies tossing money back and forth, and everyone pretending this is about “innovation” rather than feeding the same circular economy of ads, analytics, and inflated expectations. Together, they debate whether AI will really “kill us,” economically or existentially - or if it’ll just quietly charge us another subscription fee before doing so. Then Ed gets hands-on, showing how he used the Perplexity Comet Browser to automate vendor management on MarTech.Health - scanning, clicking, and categorizing HCIC sponsors like a caffeinated intern who never sleeps. Chris tests it across Google Drive and Dropbox, comparing how AI-powered browsers might actually make research faster… if they can stop breaking halfway through. This week’s recommendations: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares - a direct, unsettling argument that superhuman AI might not just disrupt us but destroy us. The Intelligence Explosion by James Barrat - a sobering follow-up exploring how AI could collapse economies and twist truth itself once it outsmarts humanity. Mentions from the Show: Chris Boyer on LinkedIn Ed Bennett on LinkedIn Chris Boyer website Ed Bennett of BlueSky Chris Boyer on BlueSky