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Worthless: 3D printing is nothing but a nerd fad that won't leave hobbyist workshops.

6 (3%)

Unimportant: 3D printing will become common but won't be useful for much other than tiny full plastic objects.

8 (4%)

Minor Importance: 3D printing will function as a light industry that will coexist with existing manufacturing methodologies.

43 (21.4%)

Moderate Importance: 3D printing will challenge and slowly replace a large number of existing manufacturing businesses.

104 (51.7%)

Major Importance: 3D printing will completely flip the table on conventional manufacturing and quickly destroy existing business for anything you can make with them.

20 (10%)

Critical: 3D printing will disrupt conventional ideals of work and money so much that they collapse and are replaced in a paradigm shift.

20 (10%)

Total Members Voted: 199

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Contour Crafting: 3D Printing goes large-scale. While you can technically consider this a different thing from what is currently accepted as 3D printing, but the difference isn't much other than scale and the material being used

So, now we're planning to print buildings. Gutenberg would be proud, I think. I'm not going to pretend that anyone reading this hasn't heard of 3D printing already, since we're a giant batch of nerds, but I'm wondering how you all see the future impact of this ever-expanding technology. 3D printing hasn't disseminated to common usage yet, but sooner or later....

Personally, I'm skeptical of both the dismissal of 3D printing as important and the idea that it will make us a post-scarcity utopia before the end of the century. Radical interpretations of new technologies such as those rarely turn out to be true. That said, there appear to be very few and ever shrinking benefits to conventional manufacturing compared to 3D printing, and given the improvements that have been made on it I definitely see it becoming a major force over the next couple of decades. Conventional manufacturing just can't stand up to it on a level playing field. The money saved by increased automation alone would make the difference between two businesses producing the same product, one through 3D printing and the other through conventional methodology.

[Criptfeind]

I put down Minor Importance. But. I do think there is the possibility of certain manufacturing being replaced over time. But I don't think it will be on a individual level, I believe that the current corporations, by and large, will be the ones to get the most benefit out of this technology.

[mainiac]

Minor importance in the short term but that's just because our economic systems wont be able to adapt.  You could give us star trek replicator technology tomorrow and we'd still have widespread poverty just because our society is so wrapped up around ideas about expectations of labor.  In a society with more white collar workers then blue collar workers (11 million more according to Columbia encyclopedia), it's not inability to manufacture that creates the shortages we experience.

[Jopax]

Interesting stuff, but I'm afraid it won't have much of an impact in the near future, simply because even though this might be cheaper and quicker for most things it would leave one of the biggest areas of industry in the world without the need for much workers.

So I'm thinking that it will be specialied at first, used in cuntries that have the extra cash to buy the technology and need to have stuff built fast, after a disaster or a war or something.

That said, it will most prorably spread like wildifire after a certain point, and that will be a good thing, as it will push out the more obsolete ways of manufacturing for the most part (handcrafting and stuff will probably hold out for a long time still).

[freeformschooler]

Do you know what this is?



This is a chess piece I made a couple years ago in Blender for a school project. I then printed it out at the school's 3D resin-based printer.

This is the FUTURE.

But yeah, I'm going to say Minor Importance. Even if it doesn't completely replace certain manufacturing jobs, I'm sure it will be used by more and more of them as time goes on.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Interesting stuff, but I'm afraid it won't have much of an impact in the near future, simply because even though this might be cheaper and quicker for most things it would leave one of the biggest areas of industry in the world without the need for much workers.

What makes you think the industry owners are going to care? They will maximize profits by not needing many workers.

This is a chess piece I made a couple years ago in Blender for a school project. I then printed it out at the school's 3D resin-based printer.

You either have a giant chess piece or tiny hands.

[lordcooper]

I'm gonna print a 3d printer so I can can print while I print.

[Jopax]

Because it's one of the biggest industries, and I'm pretty sure they don't want to leave a rather big number of mostly burly men out of jobs all at once. Especially in the current financial situation, leaving many people without jobs is a rather bad PR move too.

[freeformschooler]

This is a chess piece I made a couple years ago in Blender for a school project. I then printed it out at the school's 3D resin-based printer.

You either have a giant chess piece or tiny hands.

It is about 3 times the size of normal chess pieces.

I use it anyway when playing against my brother to intimidate him.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm gonna print a 3d printer so I can can print while I print.

There is at least one 3D printer that can produce most of its own parts. Most, mind you.

Because it's one of the biggest industries, and I'm pretty sure they don't want to leave a rather big number of mostly burly men out of jobs all at once. Especially in the current financial situation, leaving many people without jobs is a rather bad PR move too.

Big business has been doing massive layoffs for centuries, and that was with the knowledge that they would have to keep at least some of their people. You know what's bad PR to industrial executives? Not making money when they could be making money, and this would let them make the layoffs permanent. Sure it's an evil thing to do, but businesses aren't about good and evil, they're about profit and loss.

[10ebbor10]

I'm gonna print a 3d printer so I can can print while I print.

you missed the 'yo dawg' part.

I put down moderate, because I reckon that it'll replace most parts involving people working, but there is guaranteed to be some things that the 3-D printers can't do whatsoever.

Liquids, for one thing. And things that are fibre based, and therefore can't be printed in layers.

And things that can be made much cheaper, of course.

[Loud Whispers]

I'm hopeful that it will change construction, but the part of my brain that governs reality says 'not yet.'

[Knight of Fools]

3D printers can make Unicorns and roads made out of teddy bears.


It's really hard to tell exactly how a new technology will affect us until we look back in retrospect. It takes years for something to grow to a point where we realize it's changing our lives, and then years after that until we recognize the scope of the impact it had. 3D printing could easily be the next Big Thing, or it could dwindle because mass production is too expensive or unreliable. It could easily be crushed by social pressures, like government mandates to prevent job loss, or it could be a minor precursor towards something bigger.

Whatever happens, I want one, just because I could print custom gaming miniatures and whatever the heck else I wanted. A quick glance at the cost of 3D printers on Google, they're running $500 - $2,500 for personal sized printers. As the scope of the materials increases and the price continues to get lower, it could, in the least, turn a number of hobby markets, like gaming and modelling, completely upside down.

Beyond hobbyists, though, I don't see personal printers becoming too common, unless their versatility is greatly expanded at little cost. In the realm of mass production, they could be useful for companies that have a lot of little parts they need to make, but the initial cost of the printer itself and time to manufacture those parts are going to be major obstacles in making 3D printed products more common.

[10ebbor10]

Talking about 3d printers, I'm not sure wherether or not they will change construction,affect it, surely. We might see a more important change in healthcare. The ability to print organs(we can do simple, mostly non important ones already) might make organ donations useless.

[mainiac]

I haven't heard anything about printing organs yet.