Convenience as a Service - CaaS
Return to The Inconvenient Way
Artificial intelligence (AI) has come really far in 2026, the future potential and capability of AI has me wondering what we are going to do with ourselves after all said and done. It is like how having a whole list of task for a project and suddenly finding that all your tasks have been completed. You are then left twiddling your fingers wondering what you are going to do with yourself.
If you think about it, human beings were slowly sold on the idea of convenience, in every sphere of life. Domestically for example, the invention of the icebox aka fridge, encouraged bulk home cooking and storage, without the risk of food going bad. If you can eat fridge food you can surely eat ready made food from the supermarket, (or buy already sliced onions from the supermarket, but I digress). Now you can choose not to cook or warm up food, either cooked by yourself or bought from a supermarket and simply order your meals from a plethora of restaurants.
The advancement of “labor saving devices” such as the washing machine, further freed up human effort to do other things. I often wonder what has filled the time we would have typically used to prepare food from scratch or handwash laundry. Some would argue running a home, or business, or a job, but I wonder how many people really fit into those three categories.
You also just need to look around and see how much convenience has sipped into every facet of our lives. Fuelled mostly by capitalism, most of these modern convenient products are really quite great. Take kitchen appliances for example, we no longer have to take hours preparing food from scratch. Blenders will puree almost anything in a matter of seconds, great if you ask me. A microwave oven will warm up your frozen food in minutes.
However, in our quest to do chores and tasks in a faster, easier way, we have slowly but surely given up ownership and autonomy in the very things we pay for with our hard earned money. The person providing the convenient way of life has the ability to slap on ridiculous terms and conditions. Some examples that come to mind are;
Movie Rental Stores vs. Streaming
Music Album CDs Vs Streaming
Hard Copy Books Vs Ebooks
Farmers Market Vs Supermarket
Combustible car engines Vs Self Driving Electric Vehicles
No Tech Tractor Vs Smart Tractors
We passively adopt new ways of doing things without critically asking ourselves what we are truly trading. This has all culminated in the development, launch and integration of AI into our daily lives. The use of AI did not start in in the last few years, it has slowly been in the making. Modern AI-driven job cuts in large number began around 2023/2024.
In each human time period where mechanization was invented and introduced, the work force had the option of retraining to use the new technology or move on to another trade. Historians agree that this has been the case in the four industrial revolutions in our human history, each of them marking a fundamental shift in technology and society.
First (c. 1760 – c. 1840): Transition from manual labor to mechanized production powered by water and steam.
Second (c. 1870 – 1914): Driven by electricity and the internal combustion engine, enabling mass production, assembly lines, and global connectivity.
Third (c. 1950 – 2000): Known as the Digital or Computer Revolution, characterized by the rise of electronics, IT, and automated production.
Fourth (21st Century): Also known as Industry 4.0, it builds on the digital era by merging physical, digital, and biological systems through artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and robotics.
We are just beginning to step into the fifth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 5.0 - this revolution is a new and emerging phase of industrialisation that will see humans working alongside advanced technology and AI powered robots to enhance workplace processes.
Proponents of Industry 5.0 say that it will be coupled with human-centric focus as well as increased resilience and an improved focus on “sustainability”. But we can already see what is happening in the economy and the employment market. The sustainability most of us can currently see is sustainable increase in investor returns.
If you think about all the “convenient” ways that AI will be applied across industries, i.e. education, health care, agriculture, banking, security and defence, commerce, shipping & logistics, etc who truly benefits from this magnificent AI fuelled convenient way of life?
My current opinion is that as a people, we should start voting with our money and choosing to return to the inconvenient ways of doing somethings and get comfortable with it. Starting with small things like slicing your onions yourself.
