Stewart Squared
Episode #25: The Third Convergence: When Reality and Digital Collide
- Third Convergence
- reality disturbance field
- First Convergence
- Second Convergence
- digital and physical integration
- augmented reality
- virtual reality
- artificial intelligence
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About this episode
Welcome to Stewart Squared podcast with the two Stewart Alsops. In this episode, we explore the concept of the Third Convergence, a period from 2025 to 2045 where the digital and physical worlds become indistinguishable, creating what Stewart Alsop Jr. calls the "reality disturbance field". Building on the First Convergence (the rise of personal computing and digital media) and the Second Convergence (the networked internet revolution), this new era promises profound shifts in technology, human behavior, and society. We discuss augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and the implications of immersive digital experiences, touching on everything from Pokemon Go to the Apple Vision Pro. The conversation also covers the challenges of navigating an increasingly complex digital landscape, the role of venture investment in this transformation, and how historical predictions shape our understanding of the future. If you’re curious about the foundational ideas behind this discussion, check out our previous episode on the First and Second Convergences.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to the Stewart Squared Podcast
00:12 Exploring the Third Convergence
00:54 Historical Context of the First and Second Convergences
02:13 Predictions for the Third Convergence (2025-2045)
02:56 Reality Disturbance and Its Implications
03:38 The Spectrum of Technology Adoption
04:16 Netflix and the Second Convergence
07:53 Amish Technology Use
10:42 The Impact of Pokemon Go
18:53 Navigating the Real World Before Digital Maps
22:33 Challenges with Modern Calendars and Time Zones
26:22 Feature Creep in Tech Giants
27:19 Simplicity vs. Feature Creep
29:15 Reality Disturbance and the Internet
30:54 AR Glasses and Reality Disturbance
32:04 Generative AI in Filmmaking
33:17 Psychedelics and Reality Disturbance
38:42 The Singularity and Its Impact
41:52 Predictions and Venture Investing
49:02 Elon Musk and Investment Regrets
Key Insights
- The Third Convergence and Reality Disturbance – The episode introduces the concept of the Third Convergence, a period from 2025 to 2045 where digital and physical realities blend to the point of being indistinguishable. This transformation is expected to create new ways of interacting with technology, media, and each other, raising fundamental questions about perception, identity, and societal adaptation.
- Historical Convergences and Their Impact – The discussion outlines the First Convergence (1979–2010), where personal computing and digital media reshaped publishing and broadcasting, and the Second Convergence (2010–present), where the internet networked everything, leading to cloud computing and social media. These past transitions help frame the scale and inevitability of the upcoming Third Convergence.
- The Role of Augmented Reality in Future Disruption – Augmented reality (AR) is seen as a key driver of the Third Convergence, enabling digital overlays in everyday life through devices like AR glasses. While virtual reality (VR) immerses users in fully digital environments, AR integrates digital elements into real-world settings, making technology less obtrusive and more seamlessly woven into daily life.
- Technology Adoption and the Amish as a Control Group – A fascinating comparison is made between the Amish, who selectively adopt technology, and the broader spectrum of society that rapidly integrates new advancements. This spectrum—from tech minimalists to full adopters—illustrates how different groups will engage with reality disturbance, with some resisting it entirely while others fully embrace immersive digital experiences.
- Investment Strategies in Emerging Technologies – The conversation highlights the importance of identifying signals of technological inflection points rather than attempting to predict the distant future. Instead of betting on speculative concepts, successful investors look for early indicators of inevitable trends, much like how early streaming technology signaled the rise of Netflix.
- The Singularity and Unpredictability of Innovation – While the singularity—the idea that technological progress will reach a point of irreversible acceleration—remains debated, the episode discusses how history shows that disruptive innovations often emerge unpredictably. The example of Twitch evolving from Justin.tv into a billion-dollar gaming platform illustrates how even those closest to an innovation may struggle to foresee its true trajectory.
- The Complexity Paradox in Modern Technology – As technology advances, rather than simplifying life, it often introduces new layers of complexity. The discussion on digital calendars, time zones, and user interfaces underscores how feature creep can make basic tasks more frustrating, raising concerns about how reality disturbance might further complicate human interactions instead of making them more intuitive.
Episode transcript
Hello, and welcome to Stuart Squared, where the younger generation me, the millennial, interviews the older generation, the baby boomer, about the history of technology from PCs to AI. The millennial is Stuart Alsop III, me, born in 1985, and the baby boomer
Welcome to the Stuart Squared podcast, where me and my father investigate the past so that we can figure out where we are now in relation to the future. And we're going to talk about the third convergence. If you want to understand what the first and the second convergence are, go listen to the last one that we published. And we're going to talk about the third convergence, which is my dad is calling the reality Disturbance field. Is that right? What did you call it?
First of all, I give my partner credit for coming up with a term. So just as a small backgrounder with another gentleman named Jim Ward, I'm starting a new venture fund called TK MediaTek Ventures. And our thesis is that we are facing, and just entering now what we call the third convergence, and he calls reality disturbance. And so this is what was in the last podcast, but it started back in 1979, and the first 30 years was the first convergence, when digital technologies, namely personal computers and related technologies, started to change and converge with publishing and broadcasting. And that happened. You can look back and see, wow, that progressed from through 2010. And then the second convergence, which was predicted in 2010, actually a little bit after it really started, is the idea that the Internet became a functional network that tied together all of the technologies into a single network, and that produced phenomenon like the cloud, which is you could store your data externally in the cloud as well as social media. Right. You could connect to everybody else through the network and related phenomena that really happened and produced enormous returns in the teens, 2010s, and is still going on now. Right. So the social media revolution isn't over, although it's older now, and we have some idea of what's going on. So our prediction is that starting in 2025, which is from our point of view, two days away through 2045, we're going to have a third convergence. And the third convergence will be where when digital and real come together, you're going to have a hard time telling the difference between what is digital and what is real when you're confronted with it. And that might be behind glasses, it might be on your phone or your computer or indeed in movie theaters or wherever else, so that it will create another wave of technology that's going to transform the media business. That was pretty good.
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