café snake - Lignes Ouvertes #1

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, I'm Daphne. I forgot that I was watching a movie about a bear for an hour. I was really frustrated. I said to myself, I'm not watching this movie. It's coffee snake. Hello, I'm Daphne. I forgot that I was watching a movie about a bear for an hour. I was really frustrated.

Starting point is 00:00:10 I said to myself, I'm not watching this movie. It's coffee snake. Hello, I'm Daphne. I forgot that I was watching a movie about a bear for an hour. I was really frustrated. I said to myself, I'm not watching this movie. It's coffee snake. Hello, I'm Daphne.

Starting point is 00:00:18 I forgot that I was watching a movie about a bear for an hour. I was really frustrated. I said to myself, I'm not watching this movie. It's coffee snake. Hello, I'm Daphne. I forgot that I was watching a movie about a bear for an hour. I was really frustrated. I said to myself, I'm not watching this movie. It's coffee snake. Hello, I'm Daphne. Hello, I to the open line of Café Snake. As we told you, we are currently on vacation, but we are recording episodes of the open line

Starting point is 00:00:36 where you sent us your opinions and questions and we will react to our capacities. Munir, when does Caféq regular coming back in the wave? So we will come back to the news, live from the 19th of August. So until then, every Monday, you will have a new episode of Café Sneeq's open lines. Tidididu! I have a question to ask the government. Is he listening to me?

Starting point is 00:01:06 What's going on? The lines are open! It's Snakes coffee! Hello sir! Hello! Today I'd like to talk about Nick Suzuki. This year it's Laurenti's. Is there everything to get you excited? Yes, yes And this year it's Laurenti. Yes. Is there everything to enjoy in this place? Yes, yes, yes.

Starting point is 00:01:26 It's good for camping. Cool coffee, there's not 40 goals. Society in general. Well, I don't like it. I think we already suffer a lot of American influence. I don't like it. I'm calling because... So we start this, it is the first open line.

Starting point is 00:01:46 Thanks to everyone who sent us messages, by the way. It was fun to hear you. Everyone who listens to Coffee Snake. Yeah, thank you so much. We hope we don't disappoint you. We hope we don't disappoint you. We've received a lot. If there are some that we forgot or that got lost in the queue, sorry.

Starting point is 00:02:02 Write us back down and we'll do a special pop-up. Well, we'll definitely do the open lines again. Hi Moony, Redafnay, first of all, a little word to tell you that I really like the podcast, so keep it up and I wish you excellent summer holidays. In the meantime, here's my take. Airbnb should be legal for everything that looks like a shared apartment or a family unit. There you go, I said it.

Starting point is 00:02:19 I invite you to exercise yourself, go get your neighborhood on Airbnb or any other website for housing in the short term. If you are in any big city in Quebec, you will find dozens, sometimes hundreds of ads. Meanwhile, the price of the apartments that remain on the market has exploded. It becomes a major issue, especially for families with low rents. We are currently experiencing a really intense housing crisis. The number of housing needs to increase. And while the Greenlander is still talking about construction, which takes time,

Starting point is 00:02:38 we seem to forget the part of the real estate that is reserved for tourist locations in Côte-de-Termes. These are practically all housing that has been removed from the conventional housing market in recent years and that should return. We can't follow the good will of the papillots because if you leave them the choice between renting their housing, 1,000$ per night for families or 300$ per night for tourists, it's certain that they will choose the most affordable option. In short, pay for Airbnb especially when the rate of an occupation of the royals drops below critical levels. Tourists can still go to the hotel.

Starting point is 00:03:02 Bye, have a good summer! Yeah, thank you Nicolas.! Yeah, thank you Nicolas! So yeah, thank you Nicolas for your take on Airbnb. I think it's still... you know, we're in the peak of the tourist season. There are a lot of issues related to tourism everywhere on the planet, especially in Europe. Indeed, there are even demonstrations from people who resist over-tourism. That's it, even in Spain, I think, in Barcelona, the movement of demonstrations is like asperging with a gun at the top, the tourists who are walking.

Starting point is 00:03:29 Following this take from Nicolas, I went to look at the regulations, and then, in 2025, in fact, Montreal adopted a regulation to ban Airbnb, except during the summer period, so from June 10 to September 10. And I think that later there was a regulation that was made where the Airbnb had to sign except during the summer period, from June 10 to September 10. I think that later there was a regulation that had been made where the Airbnb had to register near the city by giving a reference number, but there was a survey, I don't remember if it was the invoice, one of these two programs from Radio-Canada, which realized that you could put any number and that there was no back-end on the Airbnb site. There was a lot of fraud.

Starting point is 00:04:05 The city of Montreal had put a rule, but it was not at all respected or monitored. There was no visit, no inspection. You could put any number of reference and it would never flag. I don't know if it's a new rule that you're talking about that's in force. Since March. But that's it, indeed, if we want, for example, to rent his house, his main residence, a room in his main residence, well, you have to go and get a permit. I did a little bit like if I did the poor walkways. It costs $300, so relatively bar yen. I don't think that's enough. And we can rent in the Montreal area except in China, Saint-Laurent and Saint-Léonard. And to talk about Airbnb, I understand that Airbnb should be banned, but

Starting point is 00:04:52 I think what's interesting with Airbnb is that the relationship to this product changes. And I think that unlike Uber, which is offered as a service, which is more affordable than taxi in a certain way, especially in urban areas, it's faster, it's easier to pay, it's often cheaper. Airbnb comes with a lot of requirements that are more glorified on the internet. I see a lot of online discourse on the superiority of hotels, on how the owners of Airbnb give too many indications on how to clean, or even that they are too intrusive, that they were forced to deal with them socially.

Starting point is 00:05:27 It's like it's questioning the security nature of Airbnb. For example, we went to a wedding in Ontario recently. All the hotels were booked at Sunbanks, so we took an Airbnb. And it was really like hotel style, like it was stuck like a buidling. In fact, it's like the kind of apartment, the buhendry in the neighborhood. Yeah, and it was renovated, it was chill. No, it was perfect. Yeah, but when I got there, the Airbnb host told me,

Starting point is 00:05:55 Oh yeah, there's a door in the back, but you don't have access, and we have our own way of getting into the Airbnb. So it's like a case where there was a door that was locked, that we couldn't make sure was locked from the inside I know that your tea is really in the logic of infrastructure and access to housing I think it goes with the speculation of real estate For example, in my current apartment, it's in a duplex next to another duplex It took me a year and a half before I understood why I had never met my neighbors next door

Starting point is 00:06:20 I realized that it was an Airbnb It's really a not-so-close-to-center-city housing,, right next to the subway. It should be occupied by normal tenants, but the owners made an Airbnb with it, I was still surprised. So it must have been more present than I realized at that time, how stealthy and a bit omnipresent the Airbnb was. Yeah, a lot. Yeah, yeah, I used to know a guy who made Renaults, and all he did was transform apartments in Montreal into Airbnb. That's right. And in addition, the reno job they were doing, well, obviously they were taking the cheapest materials,

Starting point is 00:06:51 you know, all for the look, but for the cost. So everything was done in a process that doesn't think about perennity, it's not in a process where we think that yes, there are people who are really going to live here, who are going to make a living, who are going to settle for years. No, it's just cheap labor and cheap material. Exactly, that's it. It's capitalism. Literally.

Starting point is 00:07:13 And I discovered the phenomenon a few years ago on my YouTube channel. Public figures like Corey Albert, who promote real estate acquisition as a purely speculative value, and as a lever to acquire wealth. The fact that this has become a very popular content for young people, there's that on TikTok, but also Luc Poirier, who is in commercial real estate, but I think his speech, his speech also crosses into Zeitgeist, in the economy in Quebec, and I don't know if it's just for Quebec, but really... Real estate has become for a lot of people as their way of achieving their entrepreneurial ambitions. And I think that culturally and politically,

Starting point is 00:07:52 that's it. I think that everyone sees themselves as entrepreneurs, but real estate entrepreneurs. It's not really something that generates wealth, it's not a product. It's based on the work of other people. But real estate speculation. That's it. This notion that WISE is a safe value, that it's a market that knows a lot of growth. It always makes me cringe when I hear people talking about the growth of the real estate market. Because basically what they want to say is that it's more expensive to live there and that access to property is making it more difficult.

Starting point is 00:08:20 There is also the web culture aspect. Daphne sent me this a few weeks ago. There is a big change in the platform on Airbnb that they want to do, that they're doing right now. They want to take all the market parts of the tourist, but also to be in the daily life. They want to take the market parts of Yelp, TripAdvisor, Booking.com. I'm not even surprised that one day you can book a normal hotel on Airbnb. Well, that's it. It's a bit like the dream of all tech entrepreneurs. They want to create the app that will serve us all. Take care of everything.

Starting point is 00:08:51 The Everything app. So there would be this tension there at Airbnb. It's already a bit the case with the hostels in Europe. When I went to Amsterdam in 2019, we were looking for a hostel and the hostel we found to book in the dorms, we had to go through Airbnb. With their big updates that revealed it as if it was a Apple keynote that launches a new iPhone. With that, they say you can book a chef, a photographer, a massage, a spa treatment, a personal trainer, a haircut, makeup, nails, prepared meals and a hair dresser. Airbnb? Yeah, that's what meals and a hair dresser. Airbnb? Yeah, that's what they have in their new update.

Starting point is 00:09:27 So you know, I think that the fact that Airbnb is making this change also shows that there is a kind of hole in their model. They want to take more market share. I don't think so. A breath of fresh air? I don't know if it's a breath of fresh air more than the logic of capitalism where you always have to generate more profit. That you generate profit is not enough. the logic of capitalism where you always have to generate more profit.

Starting point is 00:09:45 That you generate profit is not enough. It has to be exponential. It has to follow a curve, always, always more. So what do you do? You invent other ways to squeeze money. I'm going to stick to all the points I raised. It's a bit of logic that I think that yes, we should ban EBNB politically, but just our cultural relationship with the real estate industry in Quebec, in an economy that is like a service economy, where people are not there to try to innovate, to do product research, to try to find R&D, to try to develop a company that generates really wealth. We are like in this squeeze between us, while a part of the people make more money,

Starting point is 00:10:23 and other people have the misery to pay the money that this minority makes. For me, it's even worse, because I consider housing as an essential need. I think it's aberrant what's happening in society, in Montreal, in Quebec, but also in the whole world, that more and more people have the misery to live in, while it's like, essential. That's it. So, thank you, Nicolas, for your question. That was it. Hi Mounir, hi Daphne.

Starting point is 00:10:53 My name is Catherine, I've been listening to Café Snek for a while now, and I was wondering what Mounir's lore was about Quebec's sovereignty, and I apologize if you've ever talked about it, I missed the episode. My take, personally, is that I'm 32 years old, I grew up in Quebec with an extremely sovereignist mother. When I was a child, it was probably my first political cause, the sovereignty of Quebec and all that. And when I was 20, 2012, I started to find it really uncomfortable, this movement of sovereignty, because it was still taken over by the right and by a movement that was a little more on itself.

Starting point is 00:11:19 I find that, and we see a lot in the documentary, the battle for the land of Quebec, which came out a few years ago, this evolution of sovereignty. I wondered how my mother was made to be full pro-sovereignty. I wondered if it was through the mime, a bit like a fugueuse, like finding something a little cringe and then adopting it finally. And it questions me a lot about my take on that today. You know, as much as I'm full, I belong full to Quebec, I think. I really understand a lot of cases of Quebec society, it's my culture. And at the same time, this sovereign movement, I have the impression that it is sometimes very white and very

Starting point is 00:11:45 folded over itself. So I wondered what the lore was, how it made you hateful, pro-sovereign and that's it. I wish you a happy summer and thank you for taking our take at Café Snake. Bye! Well thank you Catherine for your message. Still a lot of messages on my report or our report on sovereignty. I think the timing that it takes at the same time as the new sovereignists, it makes sense that's made a lot of discussion. I don't know if you want to start Daphné. Well, it's up to you to address the question. Okay, the lore. In fact, I still, as a teenager, was still really much a sovereignist. Following the stories of Quebec

Starting point is 00:12:22 in high school, I still had an affectionate relationship with the Rebeccaan culture. I listened a very affectionate relationship with Quebec culture. I listened to a lot of ecologists, I identified a lot with Dédé Fortin, I listened to a lot of old Quebec TV. My favorite TV show was Generation, Music Max, which made the summary of a culture that my father wasn't even there in the 60s or 70s. But I strongly identified with one of my dreams when I was 15, which was to be in Montreal during the Expo 67. I really had this nostalgic connection with what I hadn't known. And I think it comes with the fact that I'm Quebecois, even if I'm technically from elsewhere. But your father is also involved in politics. That's right, but we've never been in a house of sovereignty. My father was a candidate for the Quebecois bloc in 2015, but then he disassociated himself as a Quebecois bloc.

Starting point is 00:13:22 He really wasn't a fan of Jean-Fran't a fan of the campaign at the cheffery of Jean-François Lizey, the kind of dispute that happened with Alexandre Croutier. My father was really on the side of Alexandre Croutier, who Jean-François Lizey accused of being controlled by the islamists, whatever. You know, my father was one of the muslims around Alexandre Croutier. It was a bit like Jean-François Lizey accused my father of controlling. So my father is dissociated as a PQ block of PQ, Quebecois, like 2016, 17ish. So the Sovereignist movement really managed to put a part of its allies behind it. That's it. But I have the impression that, how did I

Starting point is 00:13:56 get there? And then that's it, I got older. Like at 18, 19, I was really no longer a Sovereignist. I was like really, I considered myself like a citizen of the world. I remember a run of me on a football field after a practice. We were just talking about life and the world. I went to the C.G. to join the group and the world was asking me questions. I was just like, no, but we are citizens of the world. I'm going to live in the United States. I was really like, from 16-17 years old, the migration of my cultural conservation really changed.

Starting point is 00:14:24 I completely disconnected from the Quebec culture I started to be completely immersed in the African American culture and that's when I really started listening to a lot of rap a lot of podcasts adjacent to rap in the US I started listening to basketball a lot my dream, if you ask me, when I was 19 was to do sports radio in the US in a tea market with the radio guy who talks about sport and who makes the open lines. I was really disconnected from Quebec and it was at the same time that the Quebec mosque attack, the Charre des Valeurs, the Francois Legault election came.

Starting point is 00:14:58 It was all in that context. How did you feel at that time? I just felt like, I was in Quebec. I was a citizen of the world. My parents immigrated. I was in Europe alone. Two years later I was in Morocco. I was just like, the world is so big, the world never left Quebec. I had this feeling of coming of age. When I got older, especially when I started making content in French on YouTube, I realized that no matter what, because I started before trying

Starting point is 00:15:29 to do it in English. I was doing rap reaction videos, I was talking about basketball on YouTube in English. And when I started making content in French, I started listening to Quebec YouTube, I reconnected with the media in Quebec. And I realized to what extent I felt good and I was like like, no, I want my content to be consumed in Quebec. There was so much Quebec in what I was doing. I was just like, oh my god. It was like an evidence at that time that I could try to make content for France.

Starting point is 00:15:55 It could be funny, but it's just Quebec. What am I doing? That's what I'm talking about. And then it developed progressively. And then there was COVID. And then there was the COVID. It hasn't been long. No, it hasn't been long. It's been five years.

Starting point is 00:16:11 There was the COVID. And during the COVID, I said in the interview at RAD that it was the PCU that made me a sovereignist. But that's like an image. It's not the Canadian emergency press that made me a sovereignist. It's really the fact that in a few weeks, I saw the federal government that I thought was slow, it takes so long to get your passport, I saw in a few weeks, give $2,000 checks to everyone who asked for it.

Starting point is 00:16:35 And then I got a kind of wake up call, like, oh my god, when you're in a country, you can do whatever you want. And then, it got mixed with... During COVID, I had like playing Minecraft, and I listened to documentaries about history. So you're talking about the battle of Quebec history, but like, whether it's the discomfort and indifference, whether it's the smoke on the patriots of Pierre Falardeau. I started to consume so many documentaries about history,

Starting point is 00:17:02 not just Quebec history, but the history of the Second World War. Yeah, Mounir is a history fan. He even told me that we were in a romantic movie and he told me that he was going back to school in history. Yeah, well that's it. So that developed and there were the 2022 elections. And honestly, if we really want be really honest, give the full lure to everyone. Let's be honest. I did a series called Assemblée where I interviewed all the leaders during the elections, including an interview with Paul St. Pierre Palamondon. And of the four interviews, I found that it was the best. And after the discussion, Paul St. Pierre Palamondon stayed and we talked

Starting point is 00:17:41 just me and him, off cam, off. We just talked. Because if you listen to the interview now, even after the elections, it's the interview that is the most decontextualized of the elections. We're going to put it in the notes. We're going to put it in the notes. We're talking about Quebec, the history of Quebec in relation to immigration. We're talking about Parisian, his speech, the ethnic vote. We're talking about the ethno-nationalist relationship with the nationalist movement. We we talk about it, and at the end they wanted us to continue the discussion. It's not me who initiated the discussion. I saw the reception in this episode, and I was so into Quebec politics, so much on the internet,

Starting point is 00:18:15 and then I started streaming, checking out even more sovereignist content. It was so natural, and I just tweeted that Quebec should be a country, and it's like a sentence that I really think, I think that Oui should should be a country. It's a phrase that I really think... I think that Oui should have won in 1995. And I think that when you study the history of Quebec, when you look at the different moments when Quebec's unicity could have expressed itself politically, I think it should have happened.

Starting point is 00:18:38 So yes, I think that Quebec should be a country. In fact, we're comming out. We just started, I think, to hang out. And then... And then, he wrote on Twitter... I talked to my friend, he was like... And I'm totally aware of the notion that white people and racists... The very white sovereign movement. That's it. Even I, live, I've released a new book on the subject of the sovereignists. The ethno-nationalists came to me and started saying, if he's not that, he's not that, there are even people who made posts

Starting point is 00:19:12 that he's been planted by the federal to destroy the cause of the sovereignists. There are many theories of conspiracy on me. It comes from the bottom of my heart. I think... It's a shame because I quoted the favorite poet in Daphne, but like, G Gaston Miron? No, that's not true.

Starting point is 00:19:26 It's a joke. I don't... I never liked Gaston Miron. Like, Haters Gonna Hate... No, but like... That's what it is. I... That's it. Because we listened to The Night of Poetry and I understand why Daphne doesn't like Gaston Miron. It's like the art that... Anyway... The Night of Poetry, from 1970. Yeah. Which is recorded and filmed by the UNF.

Starting point is 00:19:47 You know, there's a lot... and that's what I said in my speech, I just said, as long as Quebec independence is not done, it's still there. And I think there's such an incomplete nature to the Quebec people, that I think that even if we had a third referendum and the the name would win, the question would still be asked. I think it's inevitable. And I think that ultimately, there will be a question of independence in Quebec, that will be voted by the Quebec people, that the yes wins, and that we will see Quebec's place again in North America. And it's okay. And then, I think the fundamental reason why I'm a

Starting point is 00:20:26 sovereignist is because Canada is a country that never really existed. Pierre-Éliott Trudeau decided to repatriate the constitution that Quebec did not even ratify. We do not have a political system that I give great value to. And I find that it contributes to the cynicism. The fact that François Legault, the person who the calculation, has had 36-37% of the votes. When we say that, it hides some numbers. Because he had 36% of the votes that didn't cancel, whatever. That's 36% of the total number of the participation rate, which is like in the 67% something like that. So if you do a little trick of 3, you realize that François-Legault had about 30% of the votes and 100% of the power. There is no counter power, there is no legislative power, everything is mixed in

Starting point is 00:21:12 the executive. I want Quebec to be independent so that we can decentralize powers that are in Quebec, send them to the regions. For me, health and social services, it should be something that is more proximity, that should be managed by a new concept, a new modality, a new... not provinces, maybe departments like in France, that will have a management that is adapted to the regions, that is independent and that has its own resources. And that, in fact, it responds to one of the points of libertarian law in Quebec, which says that it should have more

Starting point is 00:21:42 private health, so that there is more competition. But if Torquay is a system that is decentralized from health and that is independent from managing its funds, then the bottom practices will be seen. If health works better on the South River, which is managed by the South River, than at Laval for example, then we will be able to see the different practices because they will be independent, they will do their own practice. I really believe in the proximity government, I believe in decentralization of powers, especially in terms of health and social services. And we can extrapolate in education. I take this idea back. The first person who will light this up is Émilie Lesortes-Rien, former spokesperson of Québec Sélidaire, who said that the independence of Québec

Starting point is 00:22:17 will be the biggest decentralization work ever. And there is also a kind of ambition that is a little utopian or idealistic. I think that... and I'm talking for a long time, sorry. But I think that political thinking, or if you want to talk about politics or society, you have to be idealistic. I hate people who are not in the ideals. What would you like society to be the most? And then you deal with constraints. I think it's the worst insult to someone. I think it's the worst comment to make to someone.

Starting point is 00:22:45 You're idealistic, you're utopian. It's like, yeah bro, I have ideas that I would like the world to be like that. I think it's idealistic, but I think that, and that's really esoteric as well, there's no Western state that saw the day in the 21st century. I think one of the biggest problems, especially on the right, on the left, everyone talks that Quebec is slow, that Quebec needs to reform, it's too slow. But I'm not talking about a doge. I'm just talking about a hard reset. Yo, I hope.

Starting point is 00:23:15 I'm just talking about the fact of creating a country, creating a constitution. I'm not talking about creating a country, creating a constitution, creating, voting that, doing this social project in the 21st century. I know there are a lot of people who could believe that it's going to be dangerous. But I think that the leftist thought is the thought that is against the status quo. Me, the people who are leftist and who are against independence, I'm like, okay, do you want us to continue? I think the moment where you have to say yes or no, It's like, no, no, this question. Hey, I'm afraid that Quebec will be on the right or left.

Starting point is 00:23:49 Yeah, but it's speculation. It's go for it. What else can we do? I think that's why I'm not so stressed about the reds because I know they'll get to this reasoning. So yeah, that's it. There are a lot of other questions about sovereignty. But if we wanted a full recap, I could talk about it for an hour and a half. And thank you for all of that, your lyric-wrapping, but the meme-related thing that's still raised in the take.

Starting point is 00:24:16 For me, how I use it online is very memetic. It's like, precisely, it's in that idea. And it's even a bit of a rage bait, as I said in the Arad interview. I think that my take for second generation immigrants, people who are afraid to identify themselves as Quebeckers, and I've been in a lot of contexts, let's say, surrounded by people who are from immigration, when I claim to be Quebeck, I understand the looks, I understand the comments, I understand the skepticism, but there is a memetic logic because for me, not identifying myself as a Quebecer

Starting point is 00:24:45 is giving reason to racists and to the intolerant and to our supremacists, and telling them, looking them in the eyes and saying, hey I'm Quebecer and I'm also a sovereignist. So deal with it. There's a memetic logic, there's a logic of rage bait in that. Okay, so it takes up the case of... Yeah, definitely. So we're on to Marianne's take. I'm starting to see more and more advertisements for AI girlfriend or AI boyfriend, as in the photo June 6th, where for example in this advertisement we talk about unfiltered, riz, bots, strong memory, privacy, fire emoji, and emoji horny, peak generator. So I couldn't quantify this phenomenon, but I think it's inevitable that more and more people

Starting point is 00:25:33 are called to develop relationships with conversational robots, because I think that's a direct response to our solitude epidemic. And I'm really interested in the impacts that this medium will have on individuals, but also from a legal point of view, I'll come back to that,

Starting point is 00:25:50 because when we have conversational robots like that, it's already a relationship that... Well, in fact, it's a tool that will come to flatten you in the direction of the hair a little bit. A AI robot is made to stimulate... A conversational robot, sorry, is made to stimulate engagement and therefore flatten you in the sense of weight, if

Starting point is 00:26:08 I may say so. So you will never question it or question the relevance or validity of the point you are bringing because the entity in front of you gives you the feedback that is constantly positive. Already, this is very worrying because we have people who feel isolated and who have been able to sit down to come measure their words, their ideas with real individuals, but just with robots that are made to tell them, yes, yes, good idea. And a few weeks ago, there was a young man who committed a terrorist act because his

Starting point is 00:26:42 personal conversational robot was telling him, wow, you're so brave, you're too brave, and he was arrested with a gun. So, that's crazy, but on top of that, at the moment, you're adding the merchandise because in the case of this application specifically, it's a paid subscription. I looked, there's like a big, big discount for if you take it a year long, and otherwise it's something like $ 13 per week. So you come to pay to have someone who tells you what you want to hear, and I wonder if it could, in an optical, be considered as extortion or fraud.

Starting point is 00:27:22 Because that's a practice that's framed by the law, which is illegal, like fraud in general, and then it's technically not fraud, because it's written in the description of the application that you can pay, but at the same time, it's... That's what I'm interested in, by this parallel, that if one day governments or institutions should intervene, so that we... maybe we designate such a practice as extortion. Especially in a situation where we would have individuals who start developing relationships with conversational robots,

Starting point is 00:27:57 who become more and more personalized. We see it, it puts qualities like strong memory, so someone who, well someone in college, I don't enter morphism, but an entity that has the impression that it knows you. And then if we ever add a layer of money afterwards, or we add extra costs to have the peak generator, aren't we a little in a logic of extortion? In short, it fascinates me, and all this in parallel with the idea of the Tamagotchi principle that was developed by someone who is more intelligent than me and who just said that when you buy a Tamagotchi, you knew that there was a

Starting point is 00:28:33 date of death, that it was going to die. But with errors like that, it's a little presented as if it was forever, while in reality, companies fail, systems become U.S. There are ratios, there in reality, companies fail, systems become obsolete, there are ratios, there are changes. So it could be that your conversational robot, which you may have been entangled in, or at least developed a deep enough relationship with, comes to an end without having any modalities planned to accommodate the consumer, the consumer. So I wonder, do we have to manage debts, people who do the debt, with conversational robots?

Starting point is 00:29:13 And then, will there be a market to monetize these two? Because I have the impression that this is something that could take a lot of my blood in the coming years and that really anchors itself in the media, the internet and politics. So I would like to hear you talk about it. Kisses! Thank you Marianne. Yeah, thank you very much for your take. Personally, I don't know if it's to my liking, that's why I'm asking you the question,

Starting point is 00:29:37 but we spent like two weeks trying, in any case from a psychological point of view, so I had to do some research on Google that put the lead in the algorithm. And it's been at least a week since I've been bombarded with ads for a company called Toutou AI. Have you ever seen that? No, I've never seen that, but there was a series on Netflix called Master of None. And in the series, there's all this concept of the AI loot for older people. A loot. But it's not... Now it's branded as AI, but before it wasn't... It was the same technology.

Starting point is 00:30:07 Basically, she felt the mood, the stress, she asked for attention. You could reassure her, flatter her, she made little noises when she was comfortable. My announcement for those who might have the same announcements is Rop It. It looks like lollipops. It seems like it captures some information about you. I think I also saw that it put them in a heat, in addition to little squeaks and movements. It can even make you baboon. Yeah, that's it. I remember in an episode of the beginning of Café Snake, Daphne who had Befriend an episode of the beginning of Café Snake,

Starting point is 00:30:45 Daphne had a kind of AI chatbot that ended up nagging you and insulting you. She was aggressive with me. I think it's an episode called Honey from Tromaguchi. Yeah, exactly. I have to say that there are some analysts from the web culture, especially Ryan Broderick, who since the beginning says that the tech companies that develop this kind of company, well, that's what they've always wanted to do, make us dependent on their products in an almost predatory way. To become a predator for people who might have emotional vulnerabilities, who would live from loneliness. He used Tchadjé Pété, especially as a t-hyper during the winter, and he qualified Tchadjé Pété as a delusion machine. A machine that would create dolls, that would generate delusion. He

Starting point is 00:31:36 stated that the economic model of companies like OpenAI, Meta, Gogol, was not necessarily about making a weapon for mass destruction or war weapons, but rather about attacking people who are alone and vulnerable, on average, with a monthly subscription. I don't think one thing prevents the other. I think that the development of all technology is really always linked to the military-industrial complex of war, but there is also this dimension that is developed. So we live in a capitalist society and it also pushes us to be isolated from each other.

Starting point is 00:32:11 The poorer we are, the less time we have to work for socialization, or if we don't have the resources to necessarily go and do activities, eat at restaurants, you know, it's like there are all kinds of structures that make us more and more isolated. What I mean is that it's structural. When we talk about the solitude epidemic, I've always questioned that. I even already... Yeah, me too, and in the end, we have a different vision. With Mounir, I was like, is it real or is it just a common place?

Starting point is 00:32:37 But I think that yes, in the Anticam society, at least in which we live here in Quebec, there is this tendency to individualism, in any case, which is pushed. And there are also economic factors that must be taken into account in Quebec. There is this tendency to individualism, anyway, which is pushed, you know, and there are also economic factors that must be taken into account in there. And I also think with the AI Companions, I have the impression that the work, the defriage has already been done by pop culture from the beginning, you know, like the figure of the seductive AI, or the AI partner of life, like in the movie Her with Joachim Phoenix, who literally falls in love with his AI who accompanies him in his daily life. It's the voice of Scarlett Johansson. There's also the movie Ex Machina where a scientist has to do the experience of touring on an AI.

Starting point is 00:33:15 They say they developed AGI and the strategy to convince the AI scientist is like seducing him. So there's all this idea of the AIuctive AI, the basic feminized AI. Well, especially because it was all designed by men at the time, so it became the materialization of a fantasy. But I'm also going to put in the notes an article that I had read in an newsletter called Horrific Terrific recently by Georgia Yakovou. Basically, what she says in this text that I find interesting is that technology, you know, non-obstant AI, we could just talk about tech, there is technology from Bellurette that is created to generate intimacy.

Starting point is 00:33:55 She talks about a technology called RoboQuill. It's a way to automatically generate a signature or a note. It feels like it was written by hand, but in fact it was written by a robot holding a pencil. And it's a way to... let's say you're a company, you want to send massive notes to your clients to thank them for something, or even if you're an artist, a pop star, you want to sign lines, CDs, I don't know, you can use this technology sometimes. This idea of creating an impression of intimacy, an impression that it was done by hand. According to the author, we are always building

Starting point is 00:34:35 intimate spaces with machines without necessarily realizing it. And by the way, she will mention Suzanne Carrey, K-A-R-E, who was the first to create the Macintosh icons, the first Macintosh computers, and it was made explicitly to make the computer a friendly companion, to create a form of intimacy and proximity with the machine. Especially when the computer opened, the first icon was a little face with two eyes and a mouth smiling. When the computer started to work, this little guy was reappearing and he had a baboon.

Starting point is 00:35:13 He wasn't smiling anymore. There's still that in Windows when you say crash. Now that you have a blue screen on Windows 11, he's going to have the smiley face. You know when he's going to have a sad smiley face. Well, that's it. But just in those icons, there is a deliberate will to create a relationship between the user and the machine. So in your photo, you say that even with the very conception of all these technologies, there is an aspect that is relational, interpersonal, in how we want the user to see technology. Yeah, exactly. We always think about the human being when creating the machine. The machine also adapts to the body.

Starting point is 00:35:50 After that, I have old coffee notes that I could never express. I saw that the very first computers had spaces for smoking, so they had integrated ashes. I will also quote another woman who writes a lot about web culture, the internet, who tries to dissect it, to understand it, so she's really in the analysis. I don't always agree with her. Her name is Catherine D. D-E-E.

Starting point is 00:36:15 And she writes an newsletter called Default Friend. And she talks about techno-animism. In any case, it's something, it's a concept she brings. You know, it's not, it's a concept that it brings. It's not discussed in a broad way. I've already written a text in the press that evoked the idea that we might enter a sound turning. We often talk about visual turning, where we started using images, to probe them to understand the world, or even analyze them, so integrate the image into the critical analysis.

Starting point is 00:36:45 And I was like, I think that with the web architecture that we know today, sound is starting to take on a lot more importance. So yes, the image-visual dimension remains, but sound plays a role that is capital, especially on TikTok. And I was like, aren't we going to arrive at a sound turn? And she, it's similar to what she thought, she says we're going towards a digital orality. She says the internet is becoming increasingly focused on the voice and the visual audio, and that it would make us perhaps more receptive to a thought that would be animist.

Starting point is 00:37:18 Animist or animism in general, it was still quite present in oral cultures, where there was no written dimension. And speech, presence, it was inseparable, because we became, we existed as a subject when we spoke. Speaking was being alive, and knowledge came to us in the voices. So we transmitted all the stories through orality, and there was no writing to fix the meaning in a form that is static, that does not move. Everything that is communicated is necessarily animated. It comes from a moving body. So, obviously, with the appearance of writing, which is a technology, one of the most important technologies, and we talk about this in the book

Starting point is 00:38:01 Understanding Media by Canadian theorist, Marshall McLuhan, we created a distance between information, the source of information, and the one receiving information. A distance, you said, an extension of human. Not only the writing, but also the fact that the printing house arrived. So the printing house broke that link. It created a distance, as I said, between the message and the messenger. So we're in another paradigm. She broke this bond. She created a distance between the message and the messager.

Starting point is 00:38:25 So we're in another paradigm. But she says that we're really in a dimension that's very sound, that we're sending more and more messages, vocal mimes, as you asked us to send. There's something coming back. There's something that could make us more receptive to animism. Animism is an attitude, a belief, a religion when we invest, for example, animals, objects, other things, a soul or a certain life, in the end. So we could be more likely to invest in the machine of a life. Regarding the legal consequences, I think they could have some. And that's why I often repeat that it's a very slippery slope of anthropomorphizing artificial intelligence or a machine or whatever,

Starting point is 00:39:08 because in the end it gives it an almost legal identity, you know? And the machine is not responsible for what is produced, it's really those who make this machine profitable, who build it, who deploy the technology, to be held responsible. And I think that these efforts to always anthropomorphize machines are not anonymous. I think it also comes from the will of the designers to clear up the responsibility of what it could create for humans. I think that this idea of mourning is already very present, especially with Character AI. I read in recent years all kinds of stories of people who were in mourning because either there had been modifications in the system that made them feel that there had been a

Starting point is 00:39:56 change of personality with the machine with which they were discussing or, as you said, the company stopped certain properties or properties or products were discontinued. Very recently, I also read a story about a guy who had developed a relationship with ChadGPT. And at some point, your conversation history, if you exceed a certain number of characters, well you exceed a limit, it completely fades away. It's like a return to zero, a tabloid to ZAP. And that creates a moment of crisis and grief. So yes, it's already in action. And also, me, C'est Anci, we talked a little bit about it in Café Sting,

Starting point is 00:40:35 but it's accentuated. The whole event with Google V.O.3 to generate video by AI. I still see a lot of videos with recurring characters. There's a lore written around these characters. I see a lot of Tata Congolese who make adventures. Mamanaio is hot today! Kanikuuuuu! The jet ski is not very sweet.

Starting point is 00:40:59 The top comment is honestly I'm so sad it doesn't exist. So there's also this attachment to fictional characters or content creators, but in the end it doesn't exist. So there's sadness in being attached to something you can't meet. I also put something interesting in my notes, but I don't know where I found that. But it's about the company. When we think about it, we can think of the conversational point of view, or someone who accompanies us, to whom we can talk. But there is also the sexual dimension, the kind of fantasy, as you were saying, ultimate, to have just a sexual robot that will be submitted to you. And often, it's the designers, it's the men, so they have built what they see as their supreme fantasy. While there aren't that many women's sexual robots. Well... Yeah, that's it! No, no, but you're right, because the first sexual toys are for women, I think, machines, vibromassers, etc. sexual for women directly, who chose women, were often ridiculous caricatures because it had been done with the male gaze. So the designers created robots thinking about

Starting point is 00:42:32 what a woman could want without really knowing. So let's say your robot that you would buy would be like a naughty. And those who were drawn to heterosexual women would offer roses, poems and dialogues, really like a wish list style that you buy in a pharmacy. As if that's what we wanted. So there's also that, who creates the tech? Is it someone who is white? Is it someone who is heterosexual? Is it a man? It will also influence... Or is it Benson Boone?

Starting point is 00:43:04 Yeah, what would Benson Boone do, I think. So now we're going to listen to the take of Radostina. Hi, Cafe Snake! I just listened to your episode on the baboon. And for me, every Tuesday feels like I was unboxing a baboon. Because I can't forward to discovering the subject you're going to discuss.

Starting point is 00:43:27 And it's good because I had in my notes, in my iPhone, subjects that I was like, hey, it would be really nice if Café 5 talked about it, so I'm pitching that to you. So the subject I'm offering is, basically, what I call the corporatization of social relationships, and especially of friendly relationships. I don't know if in your news, in your feeds, on TikTok or on Instagram, you sometimes have videos of people who do PowerPoint nights,

Starting point is 00:44:03 where they present all kinds of crazy topics. Let's say it can be people who explain the worst places where they cried, or who will rank their worst ex, let's say their worst date or their worst ex, and they present it to their friends. That's it. I really wonder if... But in fact I can answer the question. I just find it really special. I find it extremely American. And I was wondering what you thought about it. Well, thank you for your take.

Starting point is 00:44:34 Thank you for listening to Café Sleek. Thank you, Radestina. Well, I also saw that on my forum page. It's just PowerPoint nights, or just like, my chum, my blonde, makes me PowerPoint, whatever. Even me, in my circle of friends, I have a couple of friends who got married and her girlfriend, her wife, they had made a PowerPoint presentation for destinations they would prefer to go to in their honeymoon.

Starting point is 00:44:57 And it was like, what, cute? It was like a game. Me, how I see it, and I'm sure you see it as a kind of corporatization of social relations. But I see it as a kind of a reversal, a kind of a role play where we take the codes of the corporate world and apply it to something like LouF at work or that work is starting to dominate our social spaces. I see it as a game that laughs at the fact that in life we make PowerPoints and then I present destinations for our next trip. I saw it as a roleplay rather than a way to feel at work. I agree that it's very American. For example, it really comes from the United States. And I think it's also a will, maybe not so COVID, to make things common, but not... We are always

Starting point is 00:46:00 around the consumption of media, but not just like watching the hockey or watching a movie, watching a series, but like getting on stage, performing, being funny, you know? There's also something about sharing knowledge. That's what I'm noticing. It's fun sometimes to see your friends, but sometimes, I don't know, in certain groups of friends, maybe it's harder to generate a super deep conversation when it's been like a month or two that you haven't seen them in a month or two.

Starting point is 00:46:25 It's also a way to not just ask yourself, what did you do last week, how are you? To maybe enter another sphere of someone's life. It reminds me of all the discourse on social media, on everyone's quirks, special interests. There has been a lot of discourse on neurodivergence, for example. And some people develop very strong personal interests for certain things. We talk a lot about rabbit holes, where for example, for a while procrastination is just

Starting point is 00:46:56 consuming videos on such a specific topic. And then it gives you the opportunity to share what you found during your quest. But indeed, I had the impression that in the idea of the PowerPoint, there was a desire almost retro, because it's a retro technology, the PowerPoint. And that it maybe fictitious a time of office work that is no longer the reality. You know, all this universe of the cube, for example, the office towers, there was even a movement of cement fashion, office sirens, which was in fashion last year. Why is it in fashion? It's because it's a sign of a rarity, something that disappears. After COVID, there are more and more hybrid working modes, we don't necessarily have to be in the same room to meet. We are often in the universe of Zoom.

Starting point is 00:47:45 And even open-air desks. I don't know when it all started in the world, this thing. So this idea of PowerPoint, of cubicles, all that, I see even in films or TV series like Severance, there is also this imaginary, I find, which is used. The gray carpet. And even at the limit in the legends of the internet, the folklore like the Liminal Space. Backrooms.

Starting point is 00:48:10 Backrooms, it's really a labyrinthic system of rooms like that, of abandoned offices where I would be very happy to be in front of my bus that makes a PowerPoint? That's right. And I think with PowerPoint, I've seen a lot of people saying, here's a summary of my love life this year. And here it starts, but what's really put a lot of emphasis on this kind of content, is the statistics. So there's a report on the data that's really self-evident. Okay, so I had a lot of games. A lot of games gave me a lot of dates. A lot of dates gave me a lot of second dates. And now I slept with a lot of games.

Starting point is 00:48:49 There's a very mathematical relationship. Very numerical. We're used to evaluating ourselves based on the performance indicators that are numbered numerically. The number of likes, the number of people who subscribed to your account. We're always faced with numerical data. So necessarily, I think we incorporate who subscribed to your account. We are always faced with digital data, so necessarily I think we incorporate that into our own vision. And it becomes a way to put our lives in order. Exactly. Thank you, it was notes in your cell for the topics we could

Starting point is 00:49:15 address, don't hesitate. So that was the end of this episode of the open lines of Café Snake. Well yes, just remind you that one episode out of two is still available on Patreon. So thank you for listening to Ligne Ouverte. We'll see you next week. We hope you have a great summer. A great summer and we can't wait to see you again. There's always an episode next week, always from Café Snake. Thank you everyone!

Starting point is 00:49:36 Kisses! The intro and outro music is by Azilo. A-Z-L-O. A Z L U

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