Any sort of list or ranking is fraught with subjectivity, and perhaps none more so than ranking the 100 greatest human technological achievements that have landed us where we are today. But this week, the hosts of the excellent tech podcast Hard Fork, Casey Newton and Kevin Roos, did just that. And, let's just say, it's a wild ride.
"By 'iconic,' we mean technologies that have either changed the world, ruined it or at the very least made life a little more interesting," they noted. "And because we love chaos, we’ll explain why we chose each one in roughly 30 seconds or less."
While the entire 100 is listed below, and of course includes some obvious 'greatest hits' such as radio, the telephone, the wheel, the television and penicillin, there are some curious picks in the list. We've pulled out a few that caught our eyes.
92: Bar Codes
At 8 am on the morning of June 26, 1974 – just over 50 years ago – a customer, who was actually the head of research and development at the now extinct Marsh Supermarket chain, tested out the first bar code on any product, 'buying' a packet of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum from the grocery store's Troy, Ohio, location and making history in the process. The bar code, invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver, transformed how the movement of goods would be tracked forever.
"Previously, you had to write down everything, had to have a number associated with it," Newton offered. "But barcodes were this invention that allowed for much faster processing of goods at stores."
66. Ibuprofen
"This really is the main technology that we have to deal with headaches," said Newton. "Ibuprofen really, really does a lot for you."
British pharmaceutical scientist Stuart Adams, creator of one of the world's leading over-the-counter pain medications put his money where his mouth was in 1971, taking the newly discovered and clinically trialed drug to quell a hangover. Since then, it's eased countless hangovers across the globe, and has been hard to, so far, improve upon when it comes to this class of pain relievers.
Adams, who died at the age of 95 in 2019, was a pioneer in the field of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and alongside his associate John Nicholson created a cyclooxygenase inhibitor that really is a household name today. Incredibly, in an interview in 2016, Adams said neither he nor Nicholson had made money from their world-changing work.
"People assume that I must be a very rich man because of the success of ibuprofen but I can assure you that neither John nor I received any financial reward for the success that we did have,” Adams, who worked for drug company Boots for more than half a century, told The Pharmaceutical Journal.
60. Dolly the Sheep
When a female Finn-Dorset sheep was born on July 5, 1996 in Scotland, it not only made for one of the biggest news stories of the year, but it ushered in a new moral panic surrounding eugenics and 'designer' babies being just around the corner for humanity. Known as Dolly, who was cloned from a non-reproductive somatic cell by scientists at the Roslin Institute, she became the poster-ewe for manipulating stem cells in order for us to 'hack' biology. Now, stem-cell research is a cornerstone of developing new, personalized medical therapeutics.
"Dolly, of course, was the first mammal ever to be cloned from an adult cell," Newton said. "It absolutely captured the public's imagination. It led to a lot of dystopian sci-fi."
Dolly had a short life for her breed, dying on Valentine's Day in 2003, but four years later a quartet of clones using her genomic material were born – Debbie, Denise, Dianna and Daisy – thanks to researchers at the University of Nottingham. These Dolly copies lived healthily and reached the old age of eight without showing any genetic issues. They've been hugely important in the study of developmental biology and cellular aging.
30. Ozempic
While GLP-1 agonist drugs are a relatively recent discovery – Ozempic has only been FDA-approved to treat type-2 diabetes since December 2017, with weight-loss doses coming later – it's hard to imagine a time before this class of medication existed.
"Ozempic is relatively new on the scene," said Newton, "but I think when all is said and done, people are absolutely going to say this is an iconic technology."
Roos agreed, adding: "This class of drugs that ozempic is a part of GLP-1 agonists are displaying radically transformative effects in people with obesity, people with diabetes. It's also got all these other effects that are now being studied, about how it helps people kick addictions and things like that. So I just think this is already a very important drug. It will be basically ubiquitous in the coming years. And my favorite 'fun fact' – it's inspired by Gila monster venom."
Yep, in the 1980s, venom-enthusiast and biochemist John Pisano, along with gastroenterologist Jean-Pierre Raufman were studying the toxins produced by the Gila monster from southern US and Mexico. A decade later, the pair, along with scientist John Eng, discovered a hormone-like molecule they named exendin-4. Further research led to the pivotal semaglutide discovery, a derivative of exendin-4 but one that remained in the body for longer, for better insulin regulation. And, as they say, the rest is recent history.
28. Walkman
Mostly gone, but not forgotten, the Sony Walkman – and other portable cassette tape and, later, CD devices – paved the way for the earbuds and digital content we now consume outside the home (and often within).
"Talk about an icon," he added. "When the Walkman came along, all of a sudden, you didn't have to be listening to the radio to listen to your favorite music. You could put it on a cassette tape, later, a CD, walk around town, and the world was your oyster. It was really the start of the sort of personal technology revolution."
Roos added: "One of the biggest things that sticks out, if you look at photos of groups of people 50 years ago, none of them are wearing headphones, right? And the Walkman really ushered in this era where you could be constantly walking around listening to your own personal music, and today we often see people with headphones in, Airpods or otherwise. That's just a big change in the way that people went about their daily lives. Did you know that Sony initially considered naming the Walkman the 'Soundabout.' Hmm, honestly."
In fact, Sony's innovation was first sold in the US as the Soundabout, while in the UK it was called the Stowaway and the Freestyle in Australia.
18. Waymo
Yes, the hosts ranked Waymo, self-driving cars, above the wheel when it comes to iconic inventions.
"Look, this might be a little controversial; it's pretty high on the list, but I am telling you, when you get into a car and the car drives itself, it blows my mind every single time," said Roos. "Blows everyone's mind who tries this. This is the experience that I've had of showing people Waymo when they come to San Francisco, it's sort of, you can see a childlike wonder in their eyes the first time the car starts driving itself."
As Newton added: "Waymo is a reminder to me that it is possible for technology to do things that are cool and useful and is probably going to save a lot of lives in the at the end of the day."
10. Transformer Neural Networks
"This is the transformer neural network architecture that was popularized in 2017 after researchers at Google published the now-iconic paper, 'Attention Is All You Need,' said Roos. "In that paper, they described something called a transformer, which became the foundation for everything that we see in AI today; it's the T in ChatGPT – [T] stands for transformer. And everything that has been built in AI of any importance since 2017 has been built on top of the transformer architecture."
Newton continued: "And while there are questions about whether transformers really are all you need, there is some thought, even to this day, that we might be able to create a super intelligence based solely on this technology. And even if we don't get all the way there through transformers alone, they seem like they will be at least a huge pillar of the foundation of whatever is about to come next.
"A group of researchers at Google, one researcher in particular, who was part of that original team, was inspired by watching Arrival and seeing that the aliens in the movie had this language, which represented entire sentences with a single symbol," he added. "And they thought, 'Hey, what if we did that inside of a neural network?' So rather than processing all of the inputs that you would give to one of these systems, one word at a time, you could have this thing called an attention mechanism that paid attention to all of it simultaneously, which would allow you to process much more information much faster. And that insight sparked the creation of the transformer, which led to all the stuff we see in AI today. I love that story for a lot of reasons, but just the feedback loop between nerds watching sci-fi and seeing things that don't exist and getting inspired to make things that are real, which then inspires more sci fi … Super cool, very fun. God help us all. The transformer is an iconic piece of technology. Yes, it could kill us all. It could save the world. The jury's still out, but I think it's fair to say, already iconic."
No spoilers here; you'll find Number One at the bottom of the complete 100 below.
The 100 Most Iconic Tech Inventions of All Time (… according to Roos and Newton)
100. Boats
99. Calculators
98. NFTs
97. Oregon Trail
96. Spinning Jenny
95. Radio
94. Vine
93. KitchenAid Stand Mixer
92. Bar Codes
91. Drones
90. Nintendo DS
89. Zoom
88. Sundial
87. Haber Bosch Process
86. Linux
85. Podcasts
84. Fracking
83. Fonts
82. Patreon
81. Concrete
80. Juul
79. Anesthesia
78. Netflix
77. Screws
76. Seat Belts
75. Disposable Diapers
74. Amazon Prime
73. Microsoft Excel
72. Roads
71. Databases
70. Insulin
69. OnlyFans
68. Dolby Surround Sound
67. Doom (Video Game)
66. Ibuprofen
65. Compass
64. AOL Instant Messenger
63. GPS
62. Compound Interest
61. Facebook News Feed
60. Dolly the Sheep
59. Tesla
58. Tumblr
57. Lever
56. Bitcoin
55. Motorola Razr
54. Gunpowder
53. Snapchat
52. Condoms
51. eBay
Top 50
50. Corrective Lenses
49. Slack
48. IVF
47. Shipping Containers
46. TikTok
45. Light Bulb
44. Microscopes
43. Washing Machines
42. Elevators
41. Twitter
40. Refrigerators
39. iMac
38. Napster
37. Currency (Money)
36. Cotton Gin
35. Uber
34. Fulcrum
33. Vaccines
32. MySpace
31. AlphaFold
30. Ozempic
29. Agriculture
28. Walkman
27. Cuneiform
26. Spaceships
25. CRISPR
24. Combustion Engine
23. Aqueducts
22. Grindr
21. Telephone
Top 20
20. Semiconductors
19. Wheel
18. Waymo
17. Indoor Plumbing
16. Wi-Fi
15. LSD
14. World Wide Web
13. Batteries
12. Birth Control Pill
11. Email
Top 10
10. Transformer Neural Networks
9. Atomic Bomb
8. YouTube
7. Airplanes
6. Television
5. Penicillin
4. Printing Press
3. iPhone
2. Electricity
1. Fire
Source: Hard Fork
