4 billion years ago
First cells
A body that copies itself. Without this there is no plant, animal, or person.
Earth Read moreA world timeline
Each later invention sits on the one before it. Take one out and the next one does not get built. This page walks that chain from the first cells to the machines running now.
Factory robots are already here in the millions. Walking humanoids are still pilots. A merge of body and machine has no year, because it has not been invented. Nothing on this line says the population shrinks because the machines showed up.
Nothing technical exists yet. The contribution of this era is a body that can copy itself, then one species that stacks tools on purpose.
A body that copies itself. Without this there is no plant, animal, or person.
Earth Read moreCells that can specialize. Plants, fungi, and animals all come from this split.
Earth Read moreBodies that move. Later, hands.
Oceans, then land Read moreA cutting edge. Every later blade starts here.
Africa Read moreHeat on demand. Cooking, pottery, and metal all need this.
Africa and Eurasia Read moreThe only branch that turns one tool into the next on purpose.
Africa Read moreSettled food makes workshops. Writing makes a method survive its maker. Metal makes the parts that engines will later need.
Stored food and towns. Without towns there is no spare labor for writing or workshops.
Fertile Crescent Read moreHeavy loads move. A record outlives the speaker. The press, much later, has something to print.
Mesopotamia Read moreCopper plus tin. The first metal harder than stone for real tools.
Egypt and Sumer Read moreStrong metal that is common. Engines, rails, and robot arms are impossible without it.
Anatolia, then everywhere Read moreA cheap surface. The printing press is useless without it.
China Read moreNavigation without the sun, chemistry of fire, and equations later machines will solve.
China and Baghdad Read moreBooks spread the method. Steam replaces muscle. Oil and iron turn that into factories and rails.
Reusable metal type. Knowledge stops being copied by hand, so the next inventor can read the last one.
Germany Read moreOne connected market. Ideas and materials start moving between continents.
Atlantic Read moreSeeing past the eye. Later chips and germs both depend on lenses.
Italy and the Netherlands Read moreMotion you can calculate. Engines and rockets are designed from this.
England Read moreFuel does muscle’s job. Factories and trains sit on this.
Britain Read moreSteam that moves people and freight, not just a pump in a mine.
Britain Read moreDense fuel. Cars and planes do not happen on wood and coal alone.
United States Read moreA current in a wire becomes light, a voice, a radio signal, and finally a switch that can count.
Stored electricity. Without a steady current there is no circuit.
Italy Read moreMotion becomes current, and current becomes motion. Every robot motor is this.
Britain Read moreA message faster than a horse. The telephone and the internet are the same job, richer.
United States and Britain Read moreA voice on a wire.
United States Read moreElectricity in buildings, not a steam shaft down the factory.
United States Read moreA personal engine. It needs oil, steel, and the motor.
Germany Read moreA message with no wire. Phones and satellites are this without the spark gap.
Italy, Britain, Germany Read moreControlled powered flight. It needs the engine from the car era.
United States Read moreInfection becomes treatable. Not a machine, but a reason later populations live long enough to age.
Britain Read moreOn paper: one machine can run any instructions. Computers are this idea in switches.
Britain Read moreEnergy from the atom. A side branch, not the path to the chip.
United States Read moreThe switch shrinks until a computer fits in a pocket. The network pools the data that learning machines will use.
A tiny solid switch. Without it, computers stay the size of rooms.
United States, Bell Labs Read moreA machine in orbit. Proof a radio and a computer can leave the ground.
USSR Read moreMany transistors on one piece. The personal computer, the phone, and the robot controller all need this.
United States Read moreA computer steers a machine. Other computers start sending packets to each other.
United States Read moreA whole computer on one chip.
United States Read moreOne machine per person. Programming leaves the lab.
United States Read moreA page anyone can open. This is the pool of data later AI learns from.
CERN, then the world Read moreDNA read as data. Medicine starts to look like software.
Worldwide Read moreComputer, radio, and camera in a pocket. Billions of sensors start recording the world.
United States, then everywhere Read moreSoftware learned to find patterns. Factory robots are already in the millions. A general body, and a merge with the human body, are not dated because they are not done.
Learning from examples instead of hand-written rules. This is the break that makes modern AI possible.
Worldwide research Read moreA way to train on language at scale. Chatbots and image generators sit on this.
Published research Read moreGenetic instructions used as a medicine. A real merge of biology and information, limited to one job.
Worldwide Read moreThe language model leaves the lab. It does not add a new physical machine.
Worldwide Read moreAbout 5.1 million arms running. One repeated job each. The contribution is a motor, a sensor, and a chip.
Mostly Asia, then the world Read moreAbout 7,000 sold. Still pilots. Reliability, safety, battery time, and a business case are unsolved.
More than half the makers in China Read moreNot invented. It would need the chip, the language model, a battery that lasts, and a body that does not fall. The last two are not done.
Not on the calendar Read more