It's a cliche because people really want it. If we can improve our animals, we're going to improve cats among others. Leslie Fish already tried some uplift-via-breeding by herself. No idea how much smarts one can fit into a housecat, but people *will* try. Sociopathy? Probably a lot easier to change the personality of an animal than its intelligence.

I note there may be degrees of upliftedness. I don't necessarily need a pet of full human intelligence; I'd like a pet that can use toilets of some sort, understand and respect explicit boundaries, and understand that something unpleasant like the vet or a pill will be good for it. Or as my dark version of Treebeard's talky elves went: "they don't care so much about talking *with*, they want animals they can talk *to*. Give orders and such."