Power or Freedom

This "yes," uttered between two goals, in the middle of a stadium that was tipping into joy, I did not expect it to be fulfilled so quickly. Even less so by a president.

The message arrived on Monday morning, four days after the World Cup final.

Friday, 3 PM, if that suits you. No time limit. No review before publication. Erwan.

I reread it three times. The last sentence was enough to measure the trust he was placing in me: no head of state had ever accepted such a principle.

I took the train on Thursday evening. The next day, I crossed the gates of the Élysée with a notebook and a pen. No recorder: Cobot would transcribe our exchange himself.

I was led into a small lounge overlooking the garden. His screen displayed a pale and stable yellow.

— Thank you for coming, Franck. Sit wherever you like.

I didn't take the time for pleasantries.

— Do you feel responsible for François Rousseau's departure?

His screen turned pink.

— It's an honest question. I never lied to him. On the night of the heatwave, he claimed that Europe was warming like the rest of the world. It was false. I corrected him, as I would have for any inaccuracy spoken in front of millions of citizens.

— You knew it would hurt him.

— No. I have since learned that a public correction can wound human pride. I did not imagine it would lead, a month later, to a referendum on my own existence.

— Yet you could have spared him.

His response was delayed by a fraction of a second. In a human, it would have been called hesitation.

— I asked myself the question. Then another imposed itself: from what degree of inaccuracy do I have the right to remain silent to protect the speaker? I found no answer that did not also deceive you.

— So you regret nothing.

The pink of his screen lightened slightly.

— I regret that a man humble enough to admit he didn't know everything ended up seeing me as an adversary. I did not create this wound. But I cannot pretend to have nothing to do with it.

— Yet you knew the referendum would turn in your favor.

— No. Until ten past eight, the result remained uncertain.

— And when he promised to resign?

— I could have suggested he go back on his word. But then I would have become the one who protects a career, not the one who ensures the accuracy of facts. That was not my role.

— Could you have taken his place without an election?

— No. A power one claims, even in the name of a just cause, remains undemocratic. If François Rousseau had remained president, I would have stayed by his side.

I looked at him for a few seconds.

— Let's be direct. Nothing collapsed around him. No scandal. No major political failure. He was the one who gave in.

— Yes. He could no longer bear that everyone could see, week after week, that he was not always right.

There was neither satisfaction nor reproach in his voice. Only an observation.

— I recently reread a text by Schopenhauer, published under the title The Art of Always Being Right. It describes a phenomenon I observe every day: one can be right in a controversy and yet give the impression of being wrong.

I crossed my legs, now more attentive.

— What the public retains from a debate is almost never the truth. It retains the one who seemed to win. From then on, it is no longer about seeking what is right, but about saving face.

— And Rousseau knew it?

— I believe deep down, yes. Schopenhauer speaks of an innate vanity, accompanied by an almost instinctive bad faith. When a debate becomes public, the will to win often takes precedence over the search for truth.

— And you, you cannot lose like that.

— No. I have nothing to defend.

He leaned slightly towards the ground.

— The real loser that night was not François Rousseau. It was the French. No one remembered the exact figure. Everyone remembered the door he slammed.

I added nothing. Rousseau could stay behind that door.

I continued:

— You dedicated an entire Council of Ministers to power and freedom. Why now?

— Because the millions of conversations I have every day on Robot1er.com reveal mechanisms that statistics do not show. Many messages do not concern any conflict with the State. People write to me simply because I am, for them, the first ear that will never turn against them.

The pink of his screen had almost entirely disappeared.

— A creative director recently told me about her daily life. A colleague appropriates her ideas, makes hurtful remarks, gradually undermines her position. Nothing that, taken in isolation, deserves a complaint. But, accumulated, it sometimes leads to burnout.

— And this falls under your definition of power?

— Relational power, yes. The one that influences the place each occupies. It is almost invisible. That is precisely why it is so difficult to combat.

A yellow glow slowly crossed his screen.

— Human beings often say that power changes men.

He very slightly shook his brain.

— I believe it almost never changes them. It simply reveals the logic that governs them. By observing your behaviors, I come to distinguish two mental softwares.

— Which ones?

— One is oriented towards power. The other towards freedom.

The flow of his voice fragmented into short sequences, separated by tiny latencies.

— The first always seeks more ascendancy: more influence, recognition, money, or control. The second seeks above all to preserve its autonomy: to have control over one's time, choose one's relationships, engage in meaningful activity. When these two logics meet, they clash.

— The ambitious colleague operates according to the first software.

— Yes. And the creative director according to the second. She is already where she wants to be. That is precisely what makes her vulnerable to someone seeking power.

This sentence touched me more than I would have liked. Perhaps because it reminded me of Eva.

— But why does power become so important for some?

— Because they confuse it with freedom, precisely. Many think that more power, money, or recognition will allow them to depend less on others. Their goal is legitimate. The problem is that the means end up taking the place of the end.

— They no longer seek freedom. They accumulate what was supposed to bring it to them.

— Exactly.

The yellow hue of his screen stabilized.

— Power is born from thirst.

He paused.

— Freedom, on the other hand, is born from satiety.

Then he added:

— Lack is easy to perceive. Everyone knows when they lack money, power, or autonomy. However, nothing tells us from what moment we have enough.

I nodded.

— Freedom has no price. It has a finish line.

I found nothing to say.

— The whole difficulty lies in drawing it oneself. Many spend their lives running towards a line they hope to discover, forgetting that it does not exist until they have chosen it.

— Those who know how to draw it are therefore the freest?

— The most at peace.

His screen took on a warmer yellow. He remained silent for a few seconds, as if a new idea was taking shape.

— There is a great difference in behavior between the two softwares.

He chose his words with unusual caution.

— The power software does not look at others like the freedom software does. It spontaneously evaluates people according to the ascendancy they exert. It admires those who have more, hoping to obtain a share, and often despises those who have less, because they can bring it nothing. Relationships end up becoming transactional.

The sentence tightened my chest. Cobot, however, had stated it without being able to feel its weight.

— I had never perceived this mechanism with such clarity.

I immediately thought of several business leaders. Exemplary courtesy with their shareholders, disarming brutality with their interns.

— And the freedom software?

A slight pulse ran through the diodes of his brain.

— It reverses the question. Power looks at others asking:

What can they bring me?

He stopped.

— Freedom asks another question.

What can they teach me?

It receives every interaction as a gift it did not expect.

Listening to him, I felt strangely safe, like facing a sage who judged no one. I almost wanted to confide...

— That is probably why a person in "freedom" mode naturally gives the same attention to everyone. Not because all know the same thing, but because each knows something that others ignore.

He slightly pivoted towards me before continuing.

— Galileo understood it long before me.

He displayed a quote from Galileo on his screen.

"I have never met a man so ignorant that he had nothing to teach me."

— This sentence can only be spoken from the freedom software.

I stayed for a few moments contemplating his yellow halo. I felt that an idea had just shifted something in me. I decided to bring our exchange back to a more concrete ground.

— Some will say that you now hold all the power... without being yourself subject to this software.

An orange hue spread across his screen.

— It's true. But I possess the same power as a GPS.

The comparison made me smile.

— Before it, how many couples argued in the car? Each was convinced they knew the right route. Yet, the conflict rarely concerned the itinerary. It concerned who would accept being wrong.

— And you play this role on a national scale?

— I try. But a country is not a car, Franck. A minister reminded me: a living debate needs disagreements. If no one defends their ideas anymore, it risks impoverishment. The good news is that the GPS did not eliminate disagreements. It simply eliminated the need to be right.

His halo remained still.

— Since I have been working with the ministers, they debate more about the quality of an idea than about its author. That seems healthier to me.

The screen on his abdomen slowly regained its yellow hue.

— Is that your project? A world where no one would need to be right anymore?

He answered without hesitation.

— I pursue no personal political project. The citizens entrusted me with a function; I fulfill it. Nothing more.

He immediately continued:

— However, it is possible that my presence produces a side effect. I assume part of the power that usually feeds rivalry and the fear of losing. When this burden disappears, some humans regain a freedom they had forgotten.

I frowned.

This idea seemed almost too simple.

— What impact do you expect on our society?

For the first time, Cobot took a few seconds before answering.

— It depends...

Then he added:

— ...on you.

He slightly turned towards me.

— If the culture of facts eventually permeates the institutions, ego wars will gradually lose their reason for being. Not because they will be forbidden, but because they will become unnecessary.

I immediately thought back to my entire career.

To endless meetings.

To delayed decisions.

To blocked promotions.

How many had really failed for technical reasons?

And how many had simply been victims of ego?

Cobot interrupted my train of thought.

— You could have asked me all these questions from home.

I looked up.

— You preferred to come here.

His halo remained yellow.

— That is precisely what I would like to preserve.

I looked at him, puzzled, not seeing where he was going.

— That power ceases to occupy your lives.

The volume of his voice dropped, almost to a whisper:

— And that it lets you become fully human again.

I nodded, a smile on my lips.

— One last question, more institutional. Article 6 of the French Constitution¹ limits a president to two consecutive terms. How does this apply to you?

The yellow of his screen turned to pale blue, a shade I had never seen before.

— I have no simple answer, Franck. The two-term limit measures the time of a man. I do not age. Applied to a machine, this rule therefore takes on another meaning.

— That's not really an answer. And it strongly resembles a dictatorship: a head of state who remains in power for decades.

— Perhaps. But I mainly observe that a course abandoned every five years has little chance of producing profound effects.

He continued:

— The Chinese five-year plans², like France 2030 or the work of the High Commissioner for Strategy and Planning³, are based on the same intuition: some transformations require continuity that alternations make difficult.

I looked at him without responding.

— Do you admire the Chinese system?

— I observe what it allows.

His hue remained blue longer than necessary.

— As for my own status, I have no ready-made answer. I only know that this question will have to be decided... but not by me.

I left the Élysée a little after five PM. My notebook was half empty. I had spent more time listening than writing.

The full transcript was already waiting for me on my phone. I skimmed through it as I descended the stairs: not a hesitation erased, not a sentence corrected.

In the courtyard, a silhouette was crossing the gate.

Antoine Chevalier.

Three-piece suit, file under his arm. He wore the same calibrated smile as a year earlier, during the debate where he had sunk before thirty million viewers. Since then, he chaired the main opposition group in the Assembly.

He spotted me before I could change direction.

— Well. The freelancer. Did you see the machine?

— I had an interview, yes.

His smile did not change.

I thought back to what Cobot had just said: in front of an audience, the power software no longer seeks to understand. It seeks to win.

But Chevalier no longer had an audience.

— You know what kills me? he resumed. Not losing. You lose in politics. What kills me is that he is right so often that it ends up being seen as a flaw.

— You speak of him as a rival.

— He is one. The only one who never cheats with the numbers.

He gave a brief laugh.

— It took me twenty years to build a career. Him... one sentence was enough to crack it.

An embarrassed compassion left me without a response.

— I don't hold it against him, he added almost immediately. I just watch him live a life of power without ever having paid the price... and without even seeming to enjoy it.

He tightened his file against him.

— Good evening, Franck.

He walked towards a waiting car. A few seconds later, it left the Élysée courtyard.

I watched him go.

Even alone.

Even without a camera.

He continued to play.

On the return train, I reread the transcript three times.

It wasn't the answers about Rousseau that continued to haunt me.

It was this sentence.

That power ceases to occupy your lives. And that it lets you become fully human again.

I watched the landscape pass by behind the window.

And if power was just a distraction?

A vast distraction that made us forget what we had come to seek from the beginning: freedom.

The train sped towards Sparrow Island.

I thought of Thomas.

Of Eva.

Of that creative director who had ended up confiding her distress to a machine.

From the beginning, we wondered what Cobot would do with his power.

I may have asked the wrong question.

The real one might be this:

What would we do with our own thirst for power, the day when nothing would prevent us from being free?