History is filled with moments of disruption and reform. But true systemic change – when the very foundations of society are redefined – has been rare. These periods of profound transition are not triggered by short-term trends. They emerge when multiple deep forces move in tandem, setting in motion the restructuring of the societal platform itself.

Across time, three primary drivers have shaped such transitions:

• The emergence of a general-purpose technology (GPT)
• Multi-domain convergence – when pressures build across the core domains that shape our world. These domains – science, technology, society, geopolitics, economics, environment, and philosophy – represent the structural dimensions through which change emerges, compounds, and ultimately reshapes systems.
• The expansion and democratization of knowledge

Each driver has influenced history in isolation. But when all three align, the result is not incremental – it is foundational. And for the first time in recorded history, all three may now be moving simultaneously.

Rethinking General-Purpose Technologies

The term general-purpose technology is often applied broadly, but not always rigorously. A disciplined standard requires a technology to meet all four of the following criteria:

GPT Criteria	Definition
Pervasiveness	Spreads across all sectors and domains
Continuous Improvement	Advances steadily in capability and performance over time
Complementary Innovation	Enables the development of new industries, systems, and institutional models
Broad Economic and Societal Impact	Fundamentally restructures how economies and societies function

Under this definition, only a small number of technologies qualify:

Technology	GPT Status	Rationale
Steam Engine	Yes	Enabled industrialization, mechanized labor, and transportation
Electricity	Yes	Rewired infrastructure, production, communication, and daily life
Internal Combustion Engine	Platform-Enabling	Transformed transport, logistics, and spatial design of cities
Telephone	Platform-Enabling	Collapsed distance in communication; critical to modern coordination
Artificial Intelligence	Emerging	May satisfy all four criteria; potential to replatform knowledge and labor
Digital Computing / Internet	No	Enhanced legacy systems, but did not create a new societal foundation

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Sidebar: Were the Telephone and Internal Combustion Engine Truly GPTs?

In mainstream economic literature, the internal combustion engine is widely classified as a general-purpose technology. The telephone, while less consistently cited, is often acknowledged for its transformative impact on coordination, organizational scale, and commerce.

From the perspective of systemic change, their significance becomes clearer when considered together. It was the co-existence of three foundational capabilities – electricity (energy), the internal combustion engine (transport), and the telephone (communication) – that enabled a true societal replatforming during the Second Industrial Revolution.

Electricity stands out for its pervasiveness across nearly every domain. Yet it was the combined effect of all three technologies that allowed for the restructuring of how people lived, worked, governed, and interacted. Cities expanded, supply chains emerged, bureaucracies scaled, and entire economies realigned. The platform was no longer agricultural – it was industrial, distributed, and accelerated.

In this view, these technologies are not just GPTs individually. They were foundational together. Their combined emergence represents one of the few moments in history when the societal operating system itself was replaced.

The Platform That Still Powers the Modern World

The Second Industrial Revolution did more than introduce powerful inventions – it produced a lasting societal platform based on energy, transport, and communication. This platform enabled mass production, global trade, urban expansion, and modern governance.

It continues to underpin the systems of today. Electricity still powers everything from homes to hospitals. The internal combustion engine remains central to global logistics. The telephone, extended through mobile networks and internet infrastructure, still defines how we coordinate and connect.

Modern technologies have been layered onto this foundation, not replaced it. This is the distinction between transformation and true systemic change: the former adapts to the old platform; the latter builds a new one.

Domain-Level Convergence as a Driver of Systemic Change

Systemic change is not driven by technology alone. It arises when multiple forces converge across the structural dimensions of human civilization. These include science, technology, society, geopolitics, economics, environment, and philosophy. When several of these domains simultaneously experience stress, disruption, or rapid evolution, the existing societal platform becomes vulnerable to replacement.

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Historical Alignment of the Three Drivers

While one or two of the drivers have shaped important moments of change, true convergence across all three – GPT, domain convergence, and knowledge expansion – has been exceptionally rare. The table below compares three historically significant periods:

Historical Period	GPT Present	Domain Convergence	Knowledge Expansion	Systemic Change Outcome
Second Industrial Revolution (1870–1914)	Electricity. Platform enablers included internal combustion engine, telephone	Strong convergence across technology, economics, society, and geopolitics. Environment not yet a domain of focus.	Rise of public education, technical institutions	A full societal replatforming; foundation of the modern industrial world
Post–World War II Era (1945–1970)	No new GPT; electricity scaled globally	Convergence in geopolitics, economics, society, and philosophy. Environmental awareness emerging but not central.	Mass education, global media, scientific institutions	Reconfiguration within the existing platform; institutional modernization
Digital Era (1990s–2010s)	None under strict GPT criteria	Primarily limited to technology and economics; weak systemic interaction across domains	Accelerated access to information	Optimization of the industrial platform; not a replatforming event

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The Present Moment: A Rare Convergence

Today may mark the first time in history when all three drivers are converging:

• Artificial Intelligence appears to meet the foundational criteria of a GPT. It is pervasive, self-improving, and generative, with the potential to alter work, learning, creativity, governance, and the structure of institutions.
• Domain-level pressures are intensifying across the full spectrum. Science is accelerating. Technology is advancing beyond societal readiness. Social cohesion is fraying. Geopolitical alliances are shifting. Economic systems are under strain. Environmental volatility is deepening. And foundational philosophical questions – about truth, ethics, and the role of humanity – are resurfacing.
• Knowledge itself is changing form. AI systems are not simply managing or distributing knowledge – they are creating it. This alters how knowledge is produced, validated, and acted upon, with implications for education, decision-making, and authority.

This convergence suggests something greater than disruption. It suggests the early stages of a new societal platform taking shape.

What Is at Stake

Periods of profound transition are not defined by speed. They are defined by depth. Speed accelerates the present. Depth reshapes the future.

While past decades have been marked by rapid innovation, much of that change was built on the foundations of the Second Industrial Revolution. True systemic change occurs when a new foundation is poured—when the underlying structures of energy, coordination, knowledge, and societal logic are redefined. That is the distinction between a disruptive moment and a transitional era.