The use of tools by early humans was partly a process of discovery and of evolution. Early humans evolved from a species of foraging hominids which were already bipedal, with a brain mass approximately one third of modern humans. Tool use remained relatively unchanged for most of early human history. Approximately 50,000 years ago, the use of tools and a complex set of behaviors emerged, believed by many archaeologists to be connected to the emergence of fully modern language. He writes that "socialmediabloghk policy should not unquestioningly assume that all technological progress is beneficial, or that complete scientific openness is always best, or that the world has the capacity to manage any potential downside of a technology after it is invented." Nikolas Kompridis has also written about the dangers of new technology, such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and robotics.
Some believe that the future of robotics will involve a 'greater than human non-biological intelligence.' This concept can be compared to that of a 'rogue AI,' an artificial intelligence that has gained self-awareness, and tries to eradicate humanity. Others believe that the future will involve AI servants creating an easy and effortless life for humankind, where robots have become the primary work force. Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, often using results and techniques from science. The development of technology may draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, scienceblogginghkand historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result. In 2005, futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that the future of technology would mainly consist of an overlapping "GNR Revolution" of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics, with robotics being the most important of the three.
While innovations have always influenced the values of a society and have raised new questions in the ethics of technologybloghk, the advancement of technology itself has also led to the pursuit of new solutions for the previously discussed concerns of technological advancement. For example, upcoming technology involves renewable resources being used in transportation, allowing humans to travel in space, for technology itself to become more affordable and reliable, and for increased automation. The notion of appropriate technology was developed in the 20th century by thinkers such as E.F. Schumacher and Jacques Ellul to describe situations where it was not desirable to use very new technologies or those that required access to some centralized infrastructure or parts or skills imported from elsewhere. A more infamous anti-technological treatise is Industrial Society and Its Future, written by the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and printed in several major newspapers as part of an effort to end his bombing campaign of the techno-industrial infrastructure.
Human's technological ascent began in earnest in what is known as the Neolithic Period ("New Stone Age"). The invention of polished stone axes was a major advance that allowed forest clearance on a large scale to create farms. This use of polished stone axes increased greatly in the Neolithic, but were originally used in the preceding Mesolithic naturebloghk in some areas such as Ireland. Agriculture fed larger populations, and the transition to sedentism allowed simultaneously raising more children, as infants no longer needed to be carried, as nomadic ones must. Additionally, children could contribute labor to the raising of crops more readily than they could to the hunter-gatherer economy.
Moreover, these technologies have become so complex that entire fields have developed to support them, including engineering, medicine, and computer science; and other fields have become more complex, such as construction, transportation, and architecture. Scientific advances and the discovery of new concepts later allowed for powered flight and developments in medicine, chemistry, physics, and engineering. The rise in technology has led to skyscrapers and broad urban areas whose inhabitants rely on motors to transport them and their food supplies. Communication improved with the invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio and television. The late-19th and early-20th centuries saw a revolution in transportation with the invention of the airplane and automobile.
Put together, the Roman aqueducts extended over 450 kilometers, but less than seventy kilometers of this was above ground and supported by arches. According to archaeologists, the wheel was invented around 4000 BCE probably independently and nearly simultaneously in Mesopotamia (in present-day Iraq), the Northern Caucasus and Central Europe. Estimates on when this may newsblogginghk have occurred range from 5500 to 3000 BCE with most experts putting it closer to 4000 BCE. The oldest artifacts with drawings depicting wheeled carts date from about 3500 BCE; however, the wheel may have been in use for millennia before these drawings were made. More recently, the oldest-known wooden wheel in the world was found in the Ljubljana Marsh of Slovenia.
In medicine, this era brought innovations such as open-heart surgery and later stem-cell therapy along with new medications and treatments using genomics. While technological advances have helped economies develop and create the rise of a leisure class, many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as pollution, and the depletion of natural resources from the Earth's environment. As a consequence, philosophical debates have arisen over the use of sportsblogginghk and whether technology improves or worsens the human condition. Neo-Luddism, anarcho-primitivism, and similar reactionary movements criticize the pervasiveness of technology by stating that technology harms the environment and destroys human relationships. While this is the case, ideologies such as transhumanism and techno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition. The branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science.