Impact
Additive manufacturing, starting with today’s infancy period, requires
manufacturing firms to be flexible, ever-improving users of all
available technologies to remain competitive. Advocates of additive
manufacturing also predict that this arc of technological development
will counter globalization, as end users will do much of their own
manufacturing rather than engage in trade to buy products from other
people and corporations. The real integration of the newer additive
technologies into commercial production, however, is more a matter of
complementing traditional subtractive methods rather than displacing
them entirely.
The futurologist Jeremy Rifkin claimed that 3D printing signals the
beginning of a third industrial revolution, succeeding the production
line assembly that dominated manufacturing starting in the late 19th
century.
Since the 1950s, a number of writers and social commentators have
speculated in some depth about the social and cultural changes that
might result from the advent of commercially affordable additive
manufacturing technology. Amongst the more notable ideas to have emerged
from these inquiries has been the suggestion that, as more and more 3D
printers start to enter people’s homes, the conventional relationship
between the home and the workplace might get further eroded. Likewise,
it has also been suggested that, as it becomes easier for businesses to
transmit designs for new objects around the globe, so the need for
high-speed freight services might also become less. Finally, given the
ease with which certain objects can now be replicated, it remains to be
seen whether changes will be made to current copyright legislation so as
to protect intellectual property rights with the new technology widely
available.
As 3D printers became more accessible to consumers, online social
platforms have developed to support the community. This includes
websites that allow users to access information such as how to build a
3D printer, as well as social forums that discuss how to improve 3D
print quality and discuss 3D printing news, as well as social media
websites that are dedicated to share 3D models. RepRap is a wiki based
website that was created to hold all information on 3d printing, and has
developed into a community that aims to bring 3D printing to everyone.
Furthermore, there are other sites such as Pinshape, Thingiverse and
MyMiniFactory, which were created initially to allow users to post 3D
files for anyone to print, allowing for decreased transaction cost of
sharing 3D files. These websites have allowed greater social interaction
between users, creating communities dedicated to 3D printing.
Some call attention to the conjunction of Commons-based peer production
with 3D printing and other low-cost manufacturing techniques. The
self-reinforced fantasy of a system of eternal growth can be overcome
with the development of economies of scope, and here, society can play
an important role contributing to the raising of the whole productive
structure to a higher plateau of more sustainable and customized
productivity. Further, it is true that many issues, problems, and
threats arise due to the democratization of the means of production, and
especially regarding the physical ones. For instance, the recyclability
of advanced nanomaterials is still questioned; weapons manufacturing
could become easier; not to mention the implications for counterfeiting
and on IP. It might be maintained that in contrast to the industrial
paradigm whose competitive dynamics were about economies of scale,
Commons-based peer production 3D printing could develop economies of
scope. While the advantages of scale rest on cheap global
transportation, the economies of scope share infrastructure costs
(intangible and tangible productive resources), taking advantage of the
capabilities of the fabrication tools. And following Neil Gershenfeld
in that “some of the least developed parts of the world need some of
the most advanced technologies,” Commons-based peer production and 3D
printing may offer the necessary tools for thinking globally but acting
locally in response to certain needs.
Larry Summers wrote about the “devastating consequences” of 3D
printing and other technologies (robots, artificial intelligence, etc.)
for those who perform routine tasks. In his view, “already there are
more American men on disability insurance than doing production work in
manufacturing. And the trends are all in the wrong direction,
particularly for the less skilled, as the capacity of capital embodying
artificial intelligence to replace white-collar as well as blue-collar
work will increase rapidly in the years ahead.” Summers recommends more
vigorous cooperative efforts to address the “myriad devices” (e.g.,
tax havens, bank secrecy, money laundering, and regulatory arbitrage)
enabling the holders of great wealth to “avoid paying” income and
estate taxes, and to make it more difficult to accumulate great fortunes
without requiring “great social contributions” in return, including:
more vigorous enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, reductions in
“excessive” protection for intellectual property, greater
encouragement of profit-sharing schemes that may benefit workers and
give them a stake in wealth accumulation, strengthening of collective
bargaining arrangements, improvements in corporate governance,
strengthening of financial regulation to eliminate subsidies to
financial activity, easing of land-use restrictions that may cause the
real estate of the rich to keep rising in value, better training for
young people and retraining for displaced workers, and increased public
and private investment in infrastructure developmentóe.g., in energy
production and transportation.
Michael Spence wrote that “Now comes a Ö powerful, wave of digital
technology that is replacing labor in increasingly complex tasks. This
process of labor substitution and disintermediation has been underway
for some time in service sectorsóthink of ATMs, online banking,
enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, mobile
payment systems, and much more. This revolution is spreading to the
production of goods, where robots and 3D printing are displacing
labor.” In his view, the vast majority of the cost of digital
technologies comes at the start, in the design of hardware (e.g. 3D
printers) and, more important, in creating the software that enables
machines to carry out various tasks. “Once this is achieved, the
marginal cost of the hardware is relatively low (and declines as scale
rises), and the marginal cost of replicating the software is essentially
zero. With a huge potential global market to amortize the upfront fixed
costs of design and testing, the incentives to invest [in digital
technologies] are compelling.”
Spence believes that, unlike prior digital technologies, which drove
firms to deploy underutilized pools of valuable labor around the world,
the motivating force in the current wave of digital technologies “is
cost reduction via the replacement of labor.” For example, as the cost
of 3D printing technology declines, it is “easy to imagine” that
production may become “extremely” local and customized. Moreover,
production may occur in response to actual demand, not anticipated or
forecast demand. Spence believes that labor, no matter how inexpensive,
will become a less important asset for growth and employment expansion,
with labor-intensive, process-oriented manufacturing becoming less
effective, and that re-localization will appear in both developed and
developing countries. In his view, production will not disappear, but it
will be less labor-intensive, and all countries will eventually need to
rebuild their growth models around digital technologies and the human
capital supporting their deployment and expansion. Spence writes that
“the world we are entering is one in which the most powerful global
flows will be ideas and digital capital, not goods, services, and
traditional capital. Adapting to this will require shifts in mindsets,
policies, investments (especially in human capital), and quite possibly
models of employment and distribution.”
Naomi Wu regards the usage of 3D printing in the Chinese classroom
(where rote memorization is standard) to teach design principles and
creativity as the most exciting recent development of the technology,
and more generally regards 3D printing as being the next desktop
publishing revolution.