Tools of Us

Exploring the Evolving Relationship Between Humans and the Tools They Create

Introduction

The oldest known evidence of human ancestors using stone tools dates back to about 3.3 million years ago. Today a commercial CPU has around 28 billion transistors, which primarily sourced from quartz sand. It is somehow even harder to imagine, that humans have transformed themselves from hunting in the woods with stones, to sitting in front of a glowing rectangle in a cubic for eight hours a day. In a world with abundance of resource and material, relationship between humans and tools becomes increasingly blurred, and sometimes unsettling.

The goal of this essay is to take a look at this change of human-tool dynamic, analyze the relationship from its origin to its state now, try to find the reason behind it, and look at some alternative models.

The human-tool relationship

Tools in the context of creating

In our common understanding, a tool is an object that assists humans to complete a task. Although it seems everyone understands its meaning when use the word in our language, but it is actually hard to accurately define this concept. Does a tool need to be a physical object? Are the purposes that it serves limited to a particular range? How about objects that fulfill recreational purposes? Can a human be defined as a tool?

A widely used definition of tool use is from Benjamin Beck: ‘The external employment of an unattached or manipulable attached environmental object to alter more efficiently the form, position, or condition of another object, another organism, or the user itself, when the user holds and directly manipulates the tool during or prior to use and is responsible for the proper and effective orientation of the tool’ (Beck, 1980). This definition comes from a anthropology point of view, it describes tool use as a intentional process, and emphasize on the action of alter. It is more of an observation of what a tool does and what it can be, but not distinguish it from other intentional behaviors. According to Beck’s definition, action of tool use is to intentionally alter a state, so it expands the concept of tools to non-physical objects. It supports the habit of describing particular thoughts, processes, methods that serves assisting purposes as “tools” or “toolkits” in modern language. However, this concept does not distinguish “tools” from “methods”. In a way, it makes the concept lose its purpose. If every idea and object that involve in the process of intentionally altering states can be called tools, then why bother calling it a tool? A table is a tool because it serves the function of holding objects and it is intentionally being placed there, a laptop charger is a tool because it is used to intentionally alter the state of the battery level, an IT department is a tool because it is assembled to solve technical problems of an organization, most of the objects can be called a tool, and the concept itself is deconstructed to lose its meaning.

The concept of tools is not a constant state, but a relative one. If an object serves the purpose of extend a human’s ability to accomplish a particular task, it serves as a tool in this process. A vase is a work of art when it is displayed in museum, but it is a tool when used to hold water. These two properties does not conflict with each other in a single object, that means, the state of being a tool lies in the process it involves with, instead of its absolute nature. The context in which the tool is being used should be talked about more than the object itself. In this essay I will focus on the tools in the context of working, producing and creating.

History of producing

At its original state, tools seem simple. Early human ancestors use stone tools for cutting or chopping. These tools are employed to solve simple problems, for example using their sharpness to cut things off, using their firmness to crack things open, they are easily deemed as something that serves as an extension of human power. But after taking a more careful look through the processes of how they are used, these tools were not just passive objects, they play a much more complex role in their relationship with humans. Paleolithic tools with micro-wear traces has been found, indicating how tool materials constrained or enabled specific actions (Venditti 2020). Some tools exhibit signs of being reused and recycled, indicating early humans intentionally collected and repurposed older tools (Venditti 2020). Some archaeological studies also found out that Lower Paleolithic stone tools often has complex “biographies” that extend beyond manufacture and use, meaning they are frequently recycle older tools, recognize, collect and repurpose resources (Efrati et al., 2022). These tools may suggest that the human- tool relationship is quite complicated from the beginning, they may attribute special values or meanings to older tools, and the inherent properties of tools may limit their way of work or their expectation. Already in the era of acheulean tools, humans were not using tools in an opportunistic way, but with a more forethought and possibly cultural transmission.

The emergence of tools is revolutionary, not only because it is the beginning of a series of new possibilities, but also because it completely transformed the relationship between human and his environment. Philosopher Vilém Flusser thinks as soon as a tool is introduced, a human is no longer the same state as a primitive man using his hands, for he is alienated from the environment, and he is both protected and imprisoned from the culture (Flusser 1999, pp. 45). Before the invention of tools, manufacture processes are generally carried out by hands by primitive humans. The act of manufacturing can be simplified to the process of taking resources and turn it into one’s own advantage. And the initiative of this process is from genetics or acquired cultural information. After the emergence of tools, the aspect of information inherited from genetics are becoming weaker, and the cultural information, the information that is learned and acquired, becomes stronger. When a human starts to make tools, he is also learning the way of utilizing the tool. In the example of a stone cutter, he has to adapt the way of holding the tool, find out what is the best angle, how much strength to apply, etc. These experiences might not be universal, but it is a naturally necessary process that is concerned to every tool, no matter how unique it is. When he holds the tool, some aspect of his hands’ abilities are enhanced, but in the same time his hands become specialized and limited to serving that one goal that the tool is serving. For example when he uses a cutter, characteristics like the sharpness, the length are extended, but in the same time his mobilities are also limited, he can not do other intricate movements with his fingers anymore, he can not fully control his hands when he is holding the tool, and his mind is focused on the task that the tools is supposed to do. In other words, he becomes stronger but less intelligent. That’s what Flusser means by saying human with tools is alienated from the environment. In fact, the evolution of the human-tool relationship is about this alienation, or the process of how human are leaning towards the acquired information, and less dependent on the inherited information.

The self-reproducing machines

After industrial revolution, tools evolved into a new state. What used to be dependent on human power and human control at all times now run automatically on energy source. James Watt’s steam engine made the production process more fuel-efficient, and become commercialized. Productions centralized in big factories, driven by coal-fueled steam-powered machines. The system of modern factory popularized. For the workers, they no longer control the pace or nature of their labor. The production is standardized, thus workers are regulated by machine rhythms. Labor became uniform and interchangeable, and workers became replaceable. The repetitive and segmented nature of labor in the factory alienated workers from the end product, that is a core Marxist critique.

Flusser believed that the second Industrial Revolution turned tools into machines - designed and produced in accordance with scientific theory, therefore they are more efficient, quicker and more expensive (Flusser 1999, pp. 45). Before the Industrial Revolution, tools works as an extension of human power, it enhances human abilities in some parts, but in the same time take some agency away. Humans employ inorganic tools made of stone, glass and steel as well as organic tools like animals and other humans. Even though humans can hardly get rid of these tools when creating, these tools are ultimately being hold by humans and practicing human intention. A craftsman man not work without his tools, but he has control over these tools ultimately, without the human the manufacture does not happen. After the Industrial Revolution, the organic tools as well as the processes of production that is dependent to them are quickly given up. Because of the unpredictability, inefficiency and inherently ‘unknowable’ nature of organic tools, humans need to adapt to the rules and modes of machines, and thus become an intelligent slave - in the mode of automation and robotization. As Flusser mentioned in his essay The Lever Strikes Back, the ‘Man/Machine’ relationship was reversed, and man did not use machines anymore but was used by them. He became a relatively intelligent slave of relatively stupid machines (Flusser 1999, pp. 45).

Does the evolution of ‘Man/Machine’ relationship a constant battle for control? When tools are dependent on human power, humans are in control; when machines became expensive and physically huge, humans have to adapt to the production mode of machines. But things are more complicated than this. Tools are not thinking objects, not in its stage now. They do not have a will in its own in a logic sense. But in the same time, they are definitely not neutral. They are not in control as in they have a vision or goals for their future, but in that they define the way humans live and produce. Meanwhile humans are not a unity, not everyone has the chance to enact their intention with the tools, machines and resources they have. For a production facility, it seems everyone is replaceable, even the business owner - who is supposed to be the one in control of these machines and employees. The manager or owner even seems to be the most replaceable role in the whole production facility, since they are not directly related to the production process themselves. It is really a simplification to try to put the reason of human-tool relationship as a history of battle for control, since the factors playing in this dynamic is not binary. In a way, we can see the evolution of the relationship as an ongoing alienation of human from nature and culture. Humans elevate themselves from using the skills they are born with, and depend more on the thing they learn in society, that is the alienation from nature, and the leap from using hands to tools. After that humans pursues a faster, cheaper, more precise way to accelerate the realization of their intentions, the role of machines and humans are reverted, that is the alienation from the culture.

In the age of digital tools

The position of the tool is never constant from the start of human history. Originally human use their hands to manufacture and produce, after that comes tools to assist them, like stone tools, bone tools, pottery, bricks, etc. Then after the Industrial Revolution tools becomes machines, they are automated, they do not need human power to initiate them, and in a way humans have to adapt to the characteristics of them because they are so expensive in price and huge in size, and their way is more efficient. The machines became irreplaceable, the humans instead became the most replaceable thing in this process. Humans became the intelligent slave to huge machines in the factory. That is the stage of tools and machines, the two times humans transform themselves to integrate into material world. What comes after the machine?

The ENIAC was built in 1945, it was the first electronic general-purpose digital computer. In 1980s home computer started to become popular. In 1998, the search engine google is lunched. In 2007, Apple Inc. released the iPhone. In a span of a few decades, machines transformed from the huge, expensive production necessities into smaller, smarter gadgets. These tools are difference from their predecessors, they became ubiquitous, they are everywhere. They are also replaceable. The relationship between humans and tools changes again. Computers became the most important installment for modern society, but the work differentiate the labor that were done after the Industrial Revolution. In the ages of big machines, humans need to adapt to the rhythms of machines. These labors in nature are repetitive and mindless. In the age of digital tools, repetition is no longer the mainstream mode of production. In the example of work of programming, there is a DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself, n.d.) principle. According to the Wikipedia article "Don't repeat yourself" (2025), the principle aims at reducing repetition of information which is likely to change, replacing it with abstractions that are less likely change. When similar sets of datas, functions or elements are being repeated, find the abstraction in their similarities, and put the variables in one place. This kind of practice not only prevails in the programming world, but also in most of the computer based works. It is a kind of automation and abstraction of mechanical labor. People now design how information is connected and transmitted with their orders instead of doing them manually. There is another term for this behavior: modeling and templating. Most of the works in earlier stage of digital age is about modeling and templating. When encountering a problem, simplify it with data or information, build a model out of it. Then using this model to generate predictions that can be reused hundreds or thousands of times. Writing algorithms is about building fast models to meet KPIs and endlessly repeat the process, and making design is about building scalable templates and distributions. Digital tools adapt to the nature of computing, and so are humans using these tools. The pivot of production transformed from repetitive labor, but to construction of procedures, designing and planning of functions.

The human-tool relationship in digital age is different from the mechanical age, not only in the shift in physical space, and the nature in concrete manufacture and abstract planning, but also in the way the tool itself is intelligent. In history the tools that humans use follow the strict rules of human logic and intention. They are made of inorganic matter, carry out clear goals and tasks. Humans also tamed animals to finish specific tasks, like dogs and cattle. But that behavior becomes less important after the Industrial Revolution. Organic tools are inefficient, unpredictable and nondurable, so humans abandoned them. Machines on the other hand became the major production center, humans adapt to the procedure and rhythm of machines, even transform their bodies to fit into the machine’s way of producing. Even though machines are not intelligent, they somehow controlled the working humans. But in the age of digital tools, humans start to find ways to control the organic tools as well. They want the machines to have intelligence, and carry out tasks without designed or planned procedure. Artificial intelligence is no longer a fiction, but right now it’s still in its very early stage. In 2025 the utilization of large language models into production process is no longer rare. The process of using LLM to accomplish tasks now can be seen as another way of simplify the already existing process, or another way of automation. I don’t think the LLM today is the same as an organic being in the nature, or a combination of organic matter and a machine, even it uses neural network as the base of the technology, which is a way of simulating organic processes. In a way it is not an equivalent of a living being in this material world, but a machine constantly predicting the next token in a text string based on given context. Still, the LLM is already changing a lot of the production patterns in our society. In comparison to the first and second Industrial Revolution, when peoples labor becomes a byproduct of machines rhythm, LLMs does not take the central stage like the machines in a factory do, it still very much depends on a humans interaction. This mode seem like it has returned to the mode of simple stone tools, in which tools becomes an extension of human will, but in the same time LLM tools takes away agency and possibilities. It adds additional intention to the creating and production process. In addition to that, the source material of LLM tools is still being generated by other humans, LLMs make the process of utilizing other peoples work easier. Ultimately it is always presenting older information and known practices, that’s why it is another form of automation. But even with this advanced version of automation, human society is going to have huge changes, since most human activities and occupations depend on information and knowledge, and LLMs make a lot of these knowledges accessible, only by provide a bridge between human language and machine language.

The limitation of current LLMs are not going to take us to new knowledges and experiences, but that is not to say, LLMs are not revolutionary in theory. In the age of digital tools, technology has become ubiquitous and inseparable from humans. It is a tendency that the inorganic world - tools, technologies, data - is starting to merge with the organic world. And LLMs are the merge of machine language and the human language. This start is both scary and fascinating.

Alternative models

The craftsmanship

Currently, the state of the dynamic between tools and humans is not ideal. It also seems like humans slowly cannot control the tools they create, and they have been set foot into a trap that they dug for themselves. Even though I have simplified the process of the development of the human-tool relationship into the continue alienation of humans from nature and culture, but when it comes to the status quo today, more factors worth a closer inspection. In our today’s world, every tool is also a commercial product. In order to sustain themselves in a capitalistic world, the makers of tools have to take marketability into account. A lot of design theories advocate for user centric design, even though the premise itself has its problems, but it is generally not easily achievable since the makers answer to stakeholders instead of users. Under this arrangement we have a lot of problems. For example, addictiveness in the design of digital tools, phenomenon of templates, planned obsolescence etc.

In his book The Craftsman, Richard Sennett argues that craftsmanship is a desire to do a job well for its own sake (Sennett 2008). Different from Hannah Arendt’s pessimistic view on working humans, he thinks the alternative attitude towards work can make us approach a healthier relationship with our craft. In his 2016 lecture in Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, he also commented on craftsman ship in digital age. He views code not as an object, but a performance with its own display, play, repetition like in music. He thinks the practice of craftsmanship needs to have the following traits: a rhythm of skill development, possibility for problem finding in the process of problem solving, and allowance for slow tempo (Sennett 2016).

Sennett’s view on craftsmanship is more about the human, not the tools. He thinks tools need to allow humans to develop skills. This idealistic view sees humans as the goal, not the method. In the context of craftsmanship, works is not just a productive activity, but build quality into the process of making. Through working, hard repetitive movements becomes a habit or something one does not need to think about, something natural. But during crafting, the craftsman is constantly challenged to reflect on the action. When developing a new skill, the habit is constantly challenged and forced to become a conscious decision, instead of a mechanical movement. In this process, one explores other ways to perform a task, learning and experimenting through the action. There is no one true way to do something, because crafting is about the exploring the multitude of the process, instead of the best and most efficient way to reach the goal. Problem-solving also encourages problem-finding. The idea of the craft is that problem finding and problem solving is not a clear linear relationship, because new problems begin to appear in the process of problem solving.

In modern capitalistic world, craftsmanship is not welcomed, because the tools made does not encourage user to become more skilled in their use. Every niche problem has a solution exactly tailored for it, thus a specific tool or product is produced. The logic of developing a tool is aligned to developing a product. The act of create is gradually becoming the act of consume. The concept of user friendly equals to stupefied, tools themselves only allow bare minimal level of functioning. This way the company can target a larger user group. This is sadly the reality of our current world, user is not enhanced and craftsmanship is not promoted. Is there no way to revert this tendency? If everyone values creativity and exploration instead of consuming, if we value the creation of human beings and see it as what it really is, will we have another chance in changing the production mode?

Low-tech magazine

Low-tech magazine is founded in 2007 by Kris de Decker, it is an online publication sharing knowledges and experiences about solving problems with low-tech and sustainable solutions. The platform refuses to assume that the new technology is inherently better than the old one, and there is a lot of potential in past and often forgotten knowledge(Low-tech Magazine, n.d.). This website is completely powered by solar energy, which means it goes offline if the weather in Barcelona is bad. The magazine shares articles about combining old technology with new knowledge and new materials. Examples are “Heat your House with a Mechanical Windmill”, in which the author introduced the method of using a windmill to produce heat rather than electricity or central heating (De Decker, 2019). In the article “ Communal Luxury: The Public Bathhouse”, the author researched on the topic of public bathing, and the possibility of it being a sustainable alternative to modern private bathing (De Decker, 2024). The magazine published around once a month, and it got attention for being completely solar energy powered.

I think what’s attractive about the low-tech magazine is the attitude of seeing the potential of the tools from before, and find solutions to build on them, repurpose them, transform them. It is a counter movement to the tendency of employ the newest, fastest method and maximal resource there is. It finds solutions that utilize old tools that we already have, combine them with new knowledges and experiences. Tools are not something we only have in our age, humans and tools have been entangled since the Stone Age. Progress is not linear, or the concept of progress in technology does not necessarily imply an inherent improvement. The concept of evolution describes the development better than progress, when it comes to the dynamic between humans and tools.

Conclusion

As soon as there are working, producing and creating, there are tools. Throughout history, tools are never truly neutral objects, but influence or even determine human behaviors, activities and mindsets. And in the mean time humans are also transforming tools constantly, and in doing so, transforming their bodies and the material world surrounding them. The human-tool dynamic has gone through different stages, from stone tools, where tools depends on humans to function but in the same time redirect human abilities, to machines, where tools take the central stage and dominate position, to digital tools, where tools become ubiquitous and can’t be separated from humans. The tendency is irreversible, but understanding this itself is a chance to take a look at ourselves and consider what really matters as humans. A more healthy approach to tools, which involves explore, create and learn with tools, may not be the ultimate answer, but it offers another view to the picture.

References