[verbify]

I once was thinking that if intelligent machines surpassed human intelligence, the end game would be human intelligence would atrophy but the machines would continue to serve us.

Then I had a humorous thought - what if this already happened, i.e. cats were superintelligent, invented humans to serve them and then they had no need for their own intelligence.

[gradus_ad]

It's funny to think that no matter how our technology develops, cats will be right there along for the ride, completely ignorant of it all. It's humorously comforting to think of an interstellar civilization powered by fusion and AGI serving cats just as they're served now. Scratching posts on starships seems to be inevitable.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

The domestication of cats happened because of the invention of farming.

If you store grain in a granary, it attracts a lot of insects, rodents, etc. Cats that could tolerate getting close to human settlements found a good food source. And humans like this, because the cats protect the grain without eating it. So you can see why ancient agrarian societies like the Egyptians held cats in high esteem.

And despite only having a few thousand years to adapt to each other, ends up cats and humans can understand each other and form emotional bonds pretty easily.

I imagine we'll see cats on spaceships of the future just like they were the norm on ships in the age of sail.

[b112]

This seems like a book.

Humans extinct for a billion years, AGI and robots tasked to feed and "take care of the cats".

I imagine entire cities, houses built, all empty save cat and humanform robot.

[gmueckl]

I would recommend the two episodes "Three Robots" and "Three Robots: Exit Strategies" from the anthology series Love, Death and Robots if you like this kind of humor.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

You might like the game Stray. Here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJawWyRUOBM

It's about a cat that lives in a city of robots long after humans are extinct.

[marcher]

In the puzzle game series The Talos Principle, intelligent robots (who were made to outlive humanity after a species-ending global pandemic) seem to have the exact same kind of affinity for caring for cats that humans do. It's actually really sweet and cute.

[xingped]

This was a minor plot point in that one black mirror episode with the robots on a tourism trip to Earth, lol

[shawn_w]

You mean Love, Death and Robots?

[xingped]

I'm sorry, yes, you're right. I misremembered which series I was thinking about.

[cfraenkel]

"There will come soft rains" Ray Bradbury

[nervousvarun]

Obligatory Banks Culture universe reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series

Basically when the "minds" are benevolent deities all scenarios are possible including this one. We can spend our time with cats, we can even turn into cats...as he writes about "Changers" who genetically alter themselves or shift species at whim.

And as always if someone acts up and violates the Golden Rule they get a slap drone: https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/Slap-drone

[taneq]

Maybe the cats were themselves invented by mice?

[nakedneuron]

This is brilliant.

So, if machines will be decent servants to the cats, will humans get x-ed out of the equation?

[peanball]

A topic of the “Three Robots” episode of Death Love & Robots, kind of. Sorry for the fandom link.

https://lovedeathrobots.fandom.com/wiki/Three_Robots#:~:text...

[colordrops]

This is sort of the story of The Time Machine.

[m463]

a chicken is an egg's way of producing more eggs.

[cryptonector]

Red Dwarf joins the chat