Surprise - It's Not a Toaster

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 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distracted_boyfriend]  * "This Is Fine" / KC Green's Gunshow, Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunshow_(webcomic) [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 [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/ [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 [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 [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922]  * Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) - https://www.dair-institute.org/ [https://www.dair-institute.org/]  * Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/]  * Ed Bennett on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/edbennett/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/edbennett/]

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 [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 of BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/edbennett.bsky.social] * Chris Boyer on BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social]

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 [https://homesteadcreative.org/blog/6-companies-own-90-percent-of-american-media?utm_source=chatgpt.com] * Online headlines shift from concise to click-worthy [https://phys.org/news/2025-05-online-headlines-shift-concise-click.html] * Majority of Influencers Share Unverified Information, Study Reveals [https://news.disinformationcommission.com/fake-information/majority-of-influencers-share-unverified-information-study-reveals/] * Enshitification book [https://bookshop.org/p/books/enshittification-why-everything-suddenly-got-worse-and-what-to-do-about-it-cory-doctorow/d3f8483b158906ce?ean=9780374619329&next=t&utm_source=google%2Cgoogle&utm_medium=pmax%2Cpmax&utm_campaign=16243454879%2Cbs_bestsellers&utm_content=%2C6605595657___&utm_term=%7Bsearchterm%7D&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=16235479093&gbraid=0AAAAACfld43dcb4eR-0An0mTaChijzsmv&gclid=CjwKCAiAlfvIBhA6EiwAcErpyRmAEhRt3Yg_JaXs6TLUfrGgMfHRtm7S3jez5qDoVYnis0AEmB5GFhoCQWwQAvD_BwE] * 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 of BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/edbennett.bsky.social] * Chris Boyer on BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social]

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 [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/ [https://www.pocket-lint.com/kindle-problem-story-changes/] * Roald Dahl revision controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 [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/ [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bowdlers-wanted-clean-shakespeare-not-become-byword-censorship-180963945/] * Bowdlerize (definition): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bowdlerize [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 [https://www.versobooks.com/products/3341-enshittification] * Enshittification (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification] * 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 of BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/edbennett.bsky.social] * Chris Boyer on BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social]

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 [https://bookshop.org/p/books/enshittification-why-everything-suddenly-got-worse-and-what-to-do-about-it-cory-doctorow/d3f8483b158906ce?ean=9780374619329&next=t&utm_source=google%2Cgoogle&utm_medium=pmax%2Cpmax&utm_campaign=16243454879%2Cbs_bestsellers&utm_content=%2C6605595657___&utm_term=%7Bsearchterm%7D&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=16235479093&gbraid=0AAAAACfld43dcb4eR-0An0mTaChijzsmv&gclid=CjwKCAiAlfvIBhA6EiwAcErpyRmAEhRt3Yg_JaXs6TLUfrGgMfHRtm7S3jez5qDoVYnis0AEmB5GFhoCQWwQAvD_BwE] * 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 of BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/edbennett.bsky.social] * Chris Boyer on BlueSky [https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social]