evidence: If we look at technology over very long timescales, our definition of what it is transforms, and as Tom Chatfield argues, it also displays a form of evolution entwined with our own. [...] In this, and in their initial crafting and improvement of these objects, our ancestors weren’t so different from several other groups of animals. Plenty of creatures can communicate richly, comprehend one another’s intentions and put tools to intelligent and creative use: cetaceans, cephalopods, corvids. Some can even develop and pass on particular local practices: New Caledonian crows, for example, exhibit a "culture" of tool usage, creating distinct varieties of simple hooked tools from plants in order to help them feed. [...] And if this kind of analysis feels overfamiliar – or overstated – we can recapture its shock by putting things slightly differently. From the perspective of technology, humans have been getting exponentially slower every year for the last half-century. In the realm of software, there is more and more time available for adaptation and improvement – while, outside it, every human second takes longer and longer to creep past. We – evolved creatures of flesh and blood – are out of joint with our times in the most fundamental of senses.