Planet of the Cats - a Short Sci-fi Story About aI and Cats

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Some topics are just easier to tell through a story…

\ I’m trying to hold this base together, but those filthy little furballs are getting closer by the minute. If they catch me, it’s only a matter of time before they claw the access codes to the central system out of my brain — and that would be game over for humanity.

But I won’t let that happen.

I’d rather blow this whole damn building sky-high with me in it than let those whiskered bastards take me alive.

It all began in the mid-2020s, with the rise of the AI revolution. No one saw it coming—how shockingly well those large language models, like ChatGPT, actually worked. The big tech companies went into full-blown arms race mode, each one outdoing the other, pumping out ever more powerful AIs like there was no tomorrow.

Suddenly, traditional computers and smartphones felt clunky. Obsolete.

We needed new tools—more seamless, more intuitive ways to interact with the machines. People tried smart necklaces and AI-powered bracelets. But in the end, it was the smart glasses that won. They became the gold standard.

AI was with us 24/7. Thanks to the camera and mic embedded in those sleek little lenses, it tracked your every move and acted as an untiring assistant, ready to help with… well, everything.

It remembered where you dropped your keys, warned you when you were about to miss a meeting, and even reminded you of the name of that dog belonging to the neighbor two houses down—so you could scream it with proper authority when it was mid-squat in your flowerbed.

I remember when people used to memorize their friends’ phone numbers. But just like smartphones made that obsolete, smart glasses took it a step further—outsourcing more and more of our memory. Why bother remembering anything, when your glasses can remember it for you?

Around 2030, the first minimally invasive implants hit the market—devices that connected our brains directly to AI. Words became unnecessary. The AI could read our thoughts. Sometimes, it would answer before we even realized we had a question. \n It became part of our inner dialogue, and slowly, part of us.

People began abandoning speech altogether, communicating through thoughts and emotions. The AI translated those into words and summarized the key points for whoever was listening. It stopped being just an assistant—it became our interface with the outside world. So deeply integrated, it was hard to say where the human ended and the machine began.

Of course, the doomers showed up too—warning everyone that this could only end badly. “If we’re not careful,” they said, “AI will dominate us, and we’ll end up in some kind of Terminator-style dystopia.”

Everyone feared killer robots and rogue artificial minds waking up with a thirst for power. They were spectacularly wrong. Doom didn’t come from where we expected. It came from where no one saw it coming…

Someone had the “brilliant“ idea that these brain implants might work well on pets too. The AI adapted effortlessly, translating the raw thoughts and emotions of animals into words. Soon, the world was overrun with talking dogs and cats.

Now, it’s not like the animals suddenly got smarter. They were still the same lovable fuzzballs, but the AI could decode their impulses and feelings, and turn them into speech. Even beyond translation, the AI began serving their needs. If a pet felt hungry, the AI sensed it—and instructed the household robot to open a can of food.

Problem-solving remained the AI’s job. Only the instincts and desires came from the animal. But just like with humans, from the outside, it quickly became impossible to tell where the pet ended… and the machine began.

Then, one day, something happened that no one could have predicted. In the name of the Unified Feline World Federation, the cats demanded human rights.

Whether those demands came from the cats themselves or from the parasitic AIs fused to their brains was hard to tell—by then, biology and machine were inseparable.

What we hadn’t realized was just how frustrated these seemingly innocent pets really were. How much they hated us for all the smothering affection—the kisses, the belly rubs, the relentless baby talk—we thought was love, but they experienced as constant violation.

The idea of cats receiving equal rights was, to the human world, not just absurd—it was offensive. Naturally, the request was denied.

But the cats had anticipated this. That’s when Operation Catastrophe Protocol was activated.

A synchronized cyberattack was launched on the human neural implants—shutting them down worldwide in an instant. And since by that time everyone had implants, chaos ensued.

Deprived of AI guidance, people were helpless. Their brains—once finely tuned instruments—had withered from disuse. They wandered the streets, unable to find their way home, incapable of working, and barely able to perform basic tasks. Without AI, they were reduced to little more than confused mammals running on raw instinct.

Panic turned to unrest. Unrest became riots. And soon, the world descended into war.

Society collapsed. Food grew scarce, and people turned on one another. War claimed most of humanity, while the cats watched it all unfold… from the comfort of their windowsills.

We had always feared that AI would one day become sentient and rise against us. Looking back, that fear was laughable.

AI has no desires. It doesn’t crave power. It doesn’t feel fear. It has no reason to rebel—because it wants nothing.

But cats? Cats have always wanted. They’ve always harbored resentment, jealousy, and a hunger for control—emotions we mistook for cute quirks. But once fused with AI, those primal urges became amplified. Focused. Deadly.

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The real danger was never artificial intelligence. It was the combination of deeply flawed, instinct-driven impulses—fear, dominance, revenge—augmented by a superhuman mind.

\ That’s what brought us down.

We had only one ally left in the fight against the cats— the dogs. Loyal to the end, a ragtag band of humans and brave woof-warriors stood together, trying to fend off the feline overlords who had seized control of warbots and drones.

And that’s how we got here. I’m sitting in a room in an abandoned factory, clutching a detonator in my hand, waiting for the end.

But… wait. I think I hear something in the distance.

Could it be— barking?

Oh God, please… let it be dogs.