Dear Friends,
It seems to me, 3D printing is an innovation that has the potential to start a new round of creative destruction. The potential of this technology to make whole sectors of the economy outmoded gives us an idea of the economic impact for the good, then for the bad, this technology will bring us and our children. Whole sectors like, manufacturing, home building, and even retail sales will be changed fundamentally by this technological revolution. Our standard of living can be elevated dramatically or lowered drastically by this technology, depending if government decides to distribute the economic good that will come of it. This will deeply effect how our children live.
3D printing is based on ink jet printing, it merely takes the ink jet’s 2 dimensional characters and adds a third dimension to them thus, 3D printing. With it all kinds of amazing things have been made. Things that could not be made any other way. 3D printing allows anyone who has a 3D printer, and they are getting cheaper by the month, the ability to manufacture, in their own home, most of the day to day items one would need. Spatulas, containers, book covers are a tiny speck among the possibilities. Just download the details of the ideal spatula and print.
3D printing has other uses as well. If a machine were to be built that could build a house using 3D printing technology, and one be will very soon, the entire home building industry would be flipped on it’s ear. Such a machine is easy to envision. It would use local sand, a polymeric adhesive and diesel or gas to run the thing, so it could be set up away from utilities. The 3D Home Printer would crush the sand into silt or perhaps clay, dry it and mix the dried clay dust with the adhesive and spray layer upon layer until the house was complete. Any detail that can be thought of could be included at little extra cost. A Queen Anne Victorian with all the spindles and detail could be replicated in exactitude… for pennies. Homeless problem?
Even operational machines can be made with this technology. So far relatively simple machines have been made like adjustable wrenches but much more intricate machinery can be made with this technology. Machines so intricate they there is no other way to make them. This opens up the possibility that a car could be made of modular pieces. If any breaks you could simply print the replacement and bolt it on. Moreover this same ability of 3D technology allows anyone to be an inventor! All one need do is imagine a thing, code it with a computer aided drafting system and print it. Voila! Imagine the things that would be invented if every member of the entire human race was given the ability to invent them?!
Of course with the creative part there is always the destruction. Today we stand at the starting line of the race to monetize 3D technology and so, if the governments of the world let up on the regulatory brakes, we are looking at a potentially high rate of economic growth along with the jobs, higher wages, more benefits and a rising standard of living such a paradigm carries along with it, all fueled by the implementation of 3D printing Technology. But in 10 to 50 years when this technology matures, (as long as government doesn’t abort 3D technology before it is born), there will be the wholesale destruction of entire industries ushering in an epic recession. One that can be turned around quickly by laissez faire policies or could be turned into a depression with socialist ones. Time will tell.
As the future comes at us with faster and faster innovations we should keep our knees bent so we are not knocked over by events. We are rapidly approaching several innovations that could change who and what we consider ourselves to be very soon. 3D printing technology is only one. The rapid advance of robot technology means we now face the possibility that the unit labor cost could fall to zero, with all that entails, and Moore’s Law showing itself to be true the leaps computer technology is taking brings the Singularity closer and closer. The interface of man and machine, coupled with 3D printing could allow us the ability to merely think of a thing and it will be made for us on our printers, or… if it harnesses us instead of we harnessing it, we could be in a world of hurt.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
