Its great to see that the world is catching on the the potential of 3D printing. It is a transformational technology that will speed up innovation & democratize technology. It has the potential to make almost every single product in our world better either by speeding up product development or by producing things that fit tasks better. You will be able to make what you want exactly as you want it to be.  We will be able to personalize, customize and design our world. Implants, medical instruments and replacement parts of our bodies will be created.
Products will be improved itteratively, continually, globally by loose networks of people collaborating at speeds we can scarecly imagine. By combining the connectivity of the internet and its creative force with decentralized production the variety of things optimized for a certain task will explode. Every niche will be filled, layer by layer. Not only will innovation be democratized it will be near instantaneous. As soon as an idea has been made we will be able to produce this idea. As soon as it exists other people will be able to improve upon it.  This is a wonderful thing. In the future everything could be invented and made by anyone. And herin lies the tradeoff.
Because the democratization of innovation and production will happen for everyone that is in a position to use 3D printing, irrespective of intent. Your Mother”s day present will be better but so will the capabilities of Columbine school shooters.
In a 3D printed world there will be no way to stop anyone from making anything. There will be no way to uninvent an idea. Export controls, legislation, software tools, nothing will work. There will be no meaningful way to stop the spread of any technology that can be 3D printed. There will be no way to stop anything that can be made from being made.
A 3D printer doesn”t discriminate, it just turns any design into any object.
Years ago Materialise CEO Fried Vancrean prohibited Materialise from making any weapons, weapons components and weapons systems. Given our location in the heart of Europe and close to much weapons system development this has probably cost the company considerably in terms of revenue. But, Fried was prescient in this respect. But, whereas we can choose to not make things as we did with the ATM skimmer and we continually do with weapons development it will not be possible to restrict what is made on any and all 3D printers. And even for a service it will be hard to distinguish a weapon of some kind that has been artfully disguised or split up and ordered from several services.
An AR-15 Magazine follower by Crank.
Shape charges, handguns & munitions, this is also technology that will be democratized. And these aren”t pie in the sky examples, this is what”s in my mind currently possible with the technology. And there is nothing what so ever that we can do to stop it. I know its not an uplifting message but we will simply have to cope with an increase in the technological proficiency of those that want to do harm. The tradeoff being that nearly every single product in the world will be better.
While I think it is important to think about stuff like this, I don””t think we””re far from this right already.
We””ve had machine tools for generations and they””ve had the ability to make custom parts. There have been plenty of machinists capable of causing some issues with that ability. Either some sense of morality or fear of the consequences has prevented this in the past. I don””t see the 3D printers overcoming this. That said, I will admit that tools like sketch up will definitely put the ability into more people””s hands, but you still have the intelligence filter; designing a functional whatchamacallit takes skills.
I suppose that someone could design something purely as exercise and someone else could get ahold of that design, but you then hit the barrier of morality and/or consequences.
In the mean time, I guess we need to be thankful that, for now, the resolution and materials aren””t QUITE there for most nefarious purposes.
Thanks for the post.
Jeffrey,
Thank you.
There are by some estimations over 30 million people that can 3D model. I””d love to imagine that they””re all saints but I know this is not true. As the group expands more capriciousness will enter into the fray. But, I””m most worried about intelligent & motivated people being evil. So even within this limited 3D modeler group and within the bounds of current technology I””d expect trouble. For me it’s not a question of morality, if the numbers are big enough there will always be amoral people in any given group.
Given enough eyeballs, all weapons are shallow.
A machinist at work does not have access to technology in the same way that a person at home has access to technology. I think that this is the biggest difference. But, in a mass production scenario it is also difficult to make something that is not the intended product for that production facility. I””d wager that it would be pretty difficult for one to produce an entire handgun by yourself unnoticed while you””re supposed to be working. “So Bob, why are you over at the lathe anyway? You do know you have to produce 1000 parts per hour at your stamping station, right?” Even if you were left alone overnight in a traditional factory it would be difficult to do so. It is only by expanding access to technology that we are encountering these risks for the first time.
To me the “honest machinists” would be analogous to looking at medieval scribes and priests and then saying, “look, so much care in their writing and all of it is so well written and all of it is in praise of the Lord.” Based on this one could extrapolate and conclude that the future democratization of writing would result in many men and women spending tireless hours writing ever more beautiful illustrated religious texts. Contrast that with our current state of the written word and publishing and you would be completely surprised at the outcome. Where it not that you realize how making anything easier opens it to abuse and sloppiness. Moreover making anything privately accessible opens it even more to abuse. The less something costs us, the more we can afford not to care. Technological progress lets us continually throw away newer, more complex and more advanced things.
To me this is the age that we””re entering. An age where everything is better but the YouTube commenters of this world get to make stuff with the same diligence and care they have used with their comment diction and spelling. Among the vast crowds that will use 3D printing evil will be found. Invariably.
And, IMHO current resolution and materials of commercial 3D printing systems are adequate for most nefarious purposes.
Its a good question, but seems a simple fix; limit materials.
Mechcanical weapon designs would still be possible whatever (you could make a few out of lego now ,after all), but if we make the explosive chemicals harder to get hold off and much tighter restrictions on the “bullit” componants we can have our cake and eat it.
You would still need to occasionaly ban designs in various ways – but youd be talking about complex things like magnetic rail guns here, rather then relatively simple things like handguns.
The more complex a design the harder it will be to “casualy” reach.
Your never going to prevent dedicated nutters from getting what they want given long enough – but there a relatively tiny group of criminals compared to the opertunistic ones.
Also, lets remember, we have somewhat of a counter with 3d printing increaseing access to self defensive and early warning technologys.
It””s really interesting that people are able to take the precision of a computer and print an object and use it in real life. This means that you can now start to give people real rewards via the Internet, no shipping required. The thing I am worried about is patents. If a print something on my 3d printer (not that I have one) and it violates a patent, isn””t that a lot like pirating music/movies etc? What will companies be able to do to protect themselves from lawsuits of this type?
Martin, you are not the only one concerned about patents and the legal issues that will arise as 3D printing grows. Moreover, there is good reason to be concerned as examples are already emerging that foreshadow bigger legal battles to come.
Take the case of Paramount Pictures vs Baltimore engineer Todd Blatt (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/paramount-no-3d-printing-of-our-alien-super-8-cubes.ars). A fan of the movie Super 8, Blatt took the time to recreate the Super 8 cube for printing and placed the design online so that other fans could also purchase the object. Within 24 hours of uploading the cube, he received a cease-and desist letter from Paramount forcing him to take down the design since another company had already licensed a full line of collectables related to the movie.
Or, take the case of simultanious invention with several people independently coming up with the same idea. Google 3D printed lens caps for one example of this, or you can read this post on the Discover Magazine blog to read about the example fo the Penrose Triangle http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/04/07/can-you-patent-a-shape-3d-printing-on-collision-course-with-intellectual-property-law/
All I know is that as 3D printing goes mainstream, the legal issues surrounding IP, patents and this fantastic technology will get very tricky indeed.