Definition according to The Coming Wave:
Definition
Technology is the application of scientific knowledge to produce tools or a practical outcome.
Every technology follows a single immutable law:
The Law of Technology
Over time, it gets cheaper and easier to use, and ultimately, proliferates far and wide. (Think fire, the internet, printing press, personal transport, AI etc.). Invention defaults to expansion. For most of human history, this was not a fast process. But now? Proliferation happens in days (take ChatGPT’s release)
Examples:
Think of the engine. For most of humanity, personal transport was limited to walking (or a horse if you were rich). Then, trains came around. Their (steam) engines were big and clunky, with the carriages only able take you from station to station. But quickly people realised that you’d be able to go from settlement to settlement if you could condense an engine to fit in a single locomotive.
While the steam engine eventually failed, the idea still prospered. The price of an engine dropped, from being only financially practical in trains to financially practical for the super rich. But with Henry Ford’s new invention of the assembly line, the price fell again, now the fundamental technology in the hands of the American masses.
How does Tech Spread?:
There’s an idea that foundational tech spreads in waves (again from The Coming Wave). As a single foundational technology is slowly introduced, it begins to be applied to more facets of life.
Fire was used for cooking food (which allowed us to increase the size of our brains), warding off predators (which allowed us to sleep on the ground), or making tools (which allowed us to make pickaxes, silicone and in turn computers).
Then as the use proliferates, unrelated advancements come with it (brain increases, sleep and pickaxes respectively).
Technology coming in waves compounds.
It gets old, quick.
Tech very quickly becomes the norm. Printing books was one of the things that changed the world. Now it’s deemed as something so simple. The internet was a foundational technology. Now? Life without it seems bizarre.