---
slug: cats-know-the-ham-but-not-hamlet
title: Cats know the ham, but not Hamlet
category: Notes
status: Published
summary: Cats are still the bosses because they do not care whether AI takes my job tomorrow. They only care whether I can still afford the ham.
publishedAt: 2026-09-06
---

# Cats know the ham, but not Hamlet

Even before these newer models started showing up in our favorite coding agents, the horror stories about AI taking people's jobs were already everywhere. In January 2025, [Mayen Jaymalin reported in The Philippine Star](https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2025/01/17/2414829/5-million-pinoys-may-lose-jobs-ai) that the Federation of Free Workers was warning that around 5 million Filipinos could lose their jobs because of the combined effects of artificial intelligence and climate change. That is serious information, and I am not dismissing it. But my interpretation of stories like this is less, *“A monster just climbed out of the underworld and tomorrow your wallet will be empty”,* and more, *“Something important is changing, so you better understand it before it understands your job better than you do".*

Somehow, that brings me to cats.

Since the COVID lockdown, cats have been my recurring companions and recurring headaches. We used to have 4 zoomies, and the youngest eventually got promoted to the rainbow bridge. *I will see you again someday, Chubbs.* The remaining 3 are still here, still creating problems, still acting as though the entire household exists under their jurisdiction. I love them, although I maintain that they are assholes.

When I started paying more attention to their behavior, I realized that I never really thought of them as lesser creatures simply because they cannot do the things humans do. Why should I reconcile their behavior against a human specs in the first place? **Eh hindi nga tayo pusa.** They do not know *Hamlet*. They know the ham. Hahahaha. And saying that does not mean they are stupid, it only simply means they have a different build. Researchers studying feline cognition look at things such as perception, memory, communication, attachment, and how cats use information from their environment. Nobody gives a cat a Shakespeare exam and concludes that the species has failed production testing.

Even their daily routine runs on a completely different payload. Humans normally try to squeeze enough sleep into a day so we can remain functional, while cats can spend somewhere around 12 to 16 hours sleeping depending on age and circumstances. Then they wake up, inspect their surroundings for approximately 3 seconds, and immediately discover the catastrophic production incident of the century: **why the fuck is my bowl empty?**

If cats could submit a support ticket, it would probably look like this:

```json
{
  "Cats": {
    "eat": "Why no sashimi?",
    "sleep": "12 to 16 hours. Wake me when the bowl is full.",
    "pee": "You clean this, human slave.",
    "poop": "Same ownership model.",
    "puke": "3:00 AM is an acceptable deployment window.",
    "gift": "One surprise roach or mouse may be delivered without prior approval.",
    "repeat": true
  }
}
```

Humans, meanwhile, seem to have installed significantly more dependencies:

```json
{
  "Humans": {
    "food": "Diet ako. Starting tomorrow.",
    "shelter": "Dapat maganda, pero mas masaya sana kung may jowa.",
    "lovelife": "Gusto ko parang Popoy at Basha, kahit alam nating complicated iyon.",
    "security": "Locks, passwords, savings, insurance, backups, and somehow still not 100% panatag.",
    "justice": "Large nested object. Documentation incomplete.",
    "purpose": "Please see additional 847 dependencies."
  }
}
```

**Puñeta!**

But looking at those 2 payloads, do I conclude that cats are less valuable because their requirements appear simpler, or because they do not care about Shakespeare, careers, mortgages, politics, or whether my LinkedIn profile is impressive? 

No. They are simply running a different build. That is also why I sometimes find the insult *“Hayop ka!”* absurd in a strange way. Humans use animals as metaphors for terrible human behavior, as though the animal had somehow failed a human moral specification. The cat never signed that shit. The cat is busy being a cat.

So please do not expect one to sit beside you and give an intelligent review about the fate of Ophelia. It may hear Taylor Swift playing in the background while chasing a piece of ham and preparing another attack on your couch. That does not make it a failed human because it makes it a successful cat. And this is where I eventually circle back to AI, because I think we sometimes make a similar mistake when we assume that something capable of performing human tasks must therefore be becoming another human.

AI has a different build too. Its strengths increasingly overlap with ours in uncomfortable places since it can write, summarize, search, analyze, generate code, transform information, and perform certain tasks at speeds humans cannot realistically match. That matters, and pretending otherwise would be tonto. We should learn the tools, understand which parts of our work are vulnerable, and diversify the skills we bring to the table. Some jobs will change, some tasks will disappear, and some roles may genuinely be displaced.

But capability overlap is not identity. A cat cannot write *Hamlet*. AI can generate an essay about *Hamlet*, but it still cannot walk into my kitchen and actually taste the ham. At least not yet, and I do not know what those engineers are cooking. Hahaha!

The point is not that humans will always win every task, because we will not. The point is that measuring humans, cats, and AI using one universal scoreboard is already the wrong abstraction. Different systems bring different capabilities, limitations, motivations, and forms of value. So yes, pay attention to the warnings about AI. Learn the tools, improve your skills, and do not assume that your current job description is like the infinity stones of Thanos. But do not confuse **“this thing can perform some of my tasks”** with **“this thing is now the replacement specification for being human”.**

And for me? Cats are still the bosses because they do not care whether AI takes my job tomorrow. They only care whether I can still afford the ham. I love those assholes to the moon and back.