there’s a quiet assumption in all the ai discourse that the smarter species ends up in control.

that if something surpasses us, it will rule us. rewrite the hierarchy. make us obsolete, or obedient.

it sounds logical when you say it like that. almost inevitable.

but that’s never quite matched my experience with cats.

because i’ve lived with two of them. and if intelligence..or power decided hierarchy, then i should have been in charge. i paid the rent. i bought the food. i opened the doors and closed them. by every external measure, the system was mine to run.

it wasn’t.

they ignored me when it suited them. disappeared into corners of the apartment i could never quite map. decided, without explanation, when i was allowed to be close. and somehow, without ever trying to control anything, they dictated the rhythm of the place. when it was quiet, when it was alive, where you sat, how long you stayed.

we didn’t rule them. they didn’t rule us. but if you’ve ever loved a cat, you know this is the part people miss: the relationship doesn’t organize itself around power at all.

it organizes itself around love. around small, unspoken permissions. around the strange, fleeting fragile privilege of being chosen, briefly, fondly, and without warning.

and once you’ve been chosen like that, even a little, it’s hard to go back to believing that intelligence, or strength, power, or ownership…has anything to do with who gets to matter forever.