I think everyone will have a nanofactory in 2029.

Maybe, more scaling and speed, things need to be made in minutes not hours and be able to be recycled back into the base materials all in one counter size machine for most people to have one. I think it will be like the tv.

I put my prediction in 2050 when 3D printing is now able to print virtually any household sized object at the nano level.

That’s the key word “nano”. Atom by atom. It would be so precise that it would make the best quality 3D printers today look extremely primitive.

Maybe the year 2050 would be seen as extremely conservative in this community but I feel such an advanced technology like this is so dangerous in the average Joes hands.

I think there will be high quality 3D printers at places like FedEx office, you know like they have scanners, printers, already.

3D printers need to get way more plug and play for the average person to use them. I've got one, and when it's all calibrated and running and using good filament you can run it for weeks. Then comes the time to sort out the hot end change out the tube or something else and it's back to needing someone that tinkers with things.

There is also the other side, creating things to print. If it's not on thingiverse be prepared to break out the calipers and Fusion 360. Photogrammetry and AI could really help this out. take a video of the back of the remote with a missing cover and let some software handle everything and generate the STL file.

I don’t doubt that but I only worry about what we can build with it.

Yeah nah, it will be like 3d TVs. Sounds like a good idea to begin with but end up being a short lived gimmick. I'd like one myself but I don't see every house having one.

No.

I'm bullish on software (ASI) but hardware moves slower.

Because of economies of scale it will still be cheaper for people to buy things than buy a 3D printer and then print things. With technology continuing to advance, any 3D printer is also going to become outdated quickly in what it's capable of printing and it's energy costs, which means you'd have to buy another one before you've printed enough things to make up for the cost of the first one.

As far as futuristic gadgets, I'd say maybe foldable phones will come down in price enough to be common place. I also expect we'll be able to pay for many items online, in places such as Amazon with main stream crypto-currencies such as Ethereum and bitcoin.

Also, I expect fully self driving taxies in most cities in the world by the 2030s. I do expect artificial super intelligence before 2040, and all desk jobs to be fully automated.

In today's world, 3d printers are extremely gimmicky and most people that use them are only hobbyists and tech enthusiasts. In 10 years I can see it becoming better as technology progresses but still gimmicky (for the modern layperson).

However, I can see it having great industrial uses and I think that'll be where it shines the most.

What about blue collar jobs?

No, too bad for the environment to allow everyone to spend so much. We all be in a socialist paradise with no personal vehicles only public automated cars which you can use a limited number of times, some good natural food, no plastic allowed so only wooden and metallic equipments.

If you don't like it, well you can't do anything because money is meaningless, there is no capital hence power is permanent. If you go on a strike, it won't matter because you don't have a job.

I've been wondering but what do you think can be built with it? What's the scope?

That'd be cool but there's absolutely zero chance.

That video is 16 years old; are we any further along?

I dont Think thats ever gonna happend

A lot of printshops allready do that, my local printshop has an FDM printer you can use for a fee.

3D printers allready have great industrial uses, they are immensly usefull in every engineering office and i can hardly imagine now not having one

no

No, the use for 3D printers is pretty specific and unless you need it for work, DIY stuff or tabletop minis, there is just no point in buying a 3D printer. Unlike what many people believe, a 3D printer is not a do all production machine, they are immensly usefull but in the grand scheme of things they are not much diffrent from the plethora of other production machinery besides having a cheap entrypoint.

The biggest point against it really is that you just have no real use for a 3D printer in an average household.

Yes, I think this will be the case. Many friends of mine have small scale printers at home already for hobby purpose, and once the use is more convenient (better interface through AI, more material choice) the popularity of 3D printers will rise exponentially.

one could theoretically print a nuclear warhead with ease using one of those, a pound of uranium ore only costs about 30$

Fermi paradox explained: Cletus wasn't happy with just tannerite, so he printed up the biggest nuke the world would ever see.

No, because most people don’t have a need or use for them.

Absolutely not.

Hardware is very messy and it makes no economical sense. You will just order from Amazon, which will have state-of-the-art 3D printers.

Most people here think we'll be superseded by AI overlords and uploaded into the cloud by 2030

Most desk jobs, but not all.

There are things people won’t want automated, even if the technology allows it.

This holds particularly true for government. Not only do most people not want to be governed by machines, government in general lags decades behind in software adoption.

Neat TIL, I dunno if they are industrial quality or what. I'll have to check it out.

Among households with means, yes. But I also foresee the gap widening between those with means and those without.

I think for 3d printers to become common place, 4 things need to happen, 1. scale, They need to be huge, like basically it is made to fit your garage. 2 resolution, the resolution needs to be hugely improved, like unable to see the lines in a very detailed piece. 3, robotic arms. Would love to 3d print something that needs assembling and then it is built by 2 robot arms using AI. 4. Metal printing, ability to print using both metal and steel extremely quickly, this would basically allow someone to print their own car

I think anything before what I've described, unless you get huge cost savings, people will just by from the shop

Oh yes... and government will lag behind the private sector as always lol!

That is unless the Ai politicians make the rational decision to upgrade to increase efficacy and reduce costs.

Ai could potentially be more charismatic, funny, likable, and convincing than humans, and not only convince us to give them some legal rights but also to run for and win against humans in elections. Potentially it has the possibility of shifting the culture making robot/ai discrimination a bannable offence and illegal in some countries. I'm not sure when this will happen. Intuitively it feels a long way off, maybe 2060s or 2070s.

So my bet would be the same as yours, that government jobs will mostly still be safe by the end of the 2030s.

> We all be in a socialist paradise with no personal vehicles only public automated cars which you can use a limited number of times, some good natural food, no plastic allowed so only wooden and metallic equipments.

I don't think you understand what socialism is, if you think that banning single-use plastics is socialistic

There wouldn't really be a point, other than rapid prototyping and R&D which right now most corporate entities do not prefer they'd rather have stagnation and make money off what already exists. Once it starts cutting into the profits of major companies then it'll become a problem and they'll want to get rid of it and the problem isn't going to be like making something new but repairing something old remember they don't want technology to last anymore but with 3D printers you could do repairs on certain items to keep them going heck formlabs showed me a material they used a couple years ago that you could used to 3D print the manifold of a classic car and you could use that manifold for up to I think it was 3 months but the material was basically made to make a mold to do a drop Forge casting.

Honestly I think 3D printing if it does make it a mark anywhere and they find out how to do it with food but again just to make novelty items out of food and the other thing would be making casts and molds for jewelry and dentists.

Whatever gets used for keeping old products up and running you better believe that someone's going to drop the hammer on that it's just the world we live in.

As of right now it looks like it's just going down the same path as CB radios did in the 70s

AI doesn’t meet the legal requirements to hold political office.

Past a certain level, those requirements include citizenship and age and are defined by the Constitution.

Changing those requirements would be extraordinarily difficult and would have to be signed off on by three different supermajorities . Supermajorities that would personally be adversely affected.

Most people don't need it

3D printers are definitely becoming more commonplace, but haven’t really become a mainstream product yet. Maybe AI could make this happen? But then again for what reason other than a cool tech gadget would it serve to the common person?

I understand very well what socialism is. I'm not however stupid enough to think that money is the only source of power.

> I'm not however stupid enough to think that money is the only source of power.

Bourgeoisie and proletariat do not refer to wealth, they refer to one's relationship to the means of production

As someone with a few 3D printers. No.

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The why is simple. 3D printers ARE NOT PLUG AND PLAY. Like there is a huge amount of it that could be at first. But after a bit you have to change hotends, getting the print to stick, getting the print to work, materials, clogging, and so on.

And clogs aren't as simple as a paper jam. People have broken their printer clearing a clog.

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Oh and then there is physical space. Most people live in something way too small and they hardly have enough money to live off of.

Oh and a real problem today is depending on weather (humidity in the air) is depending on the quality of the print. Most live in places where windows are a joke, and this means when it rains or whatever then good luck on that.

Chances are there would be better solutions than 3D printing. There is a theory and it actually has some working practice. This is one of the methods Claytronics https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Claytronics

It is thought one day you will have some you would have some liquid looking thing in some box or bowl or something. Or maybe it is a solid cube. Once it is program it will make whatever using nanobots. Have people coming over? It makes a chair. Are they people going? It goes back to being whatever state it was before.

Want to go to bed? It turns into a bed with bedsheets and so on. Don't want to sleep anymore. It turns back into the state it was before.

Look up programmable matter. https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Programmable_matter

>What about blue collar jobs?

It's likely most will be replaced with robotics at some point.

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Just money wise robots are cheaper over time, they take no sick days, and so on. Now the problem currently is robots are stupid. Like a robotic cleaning system currently has to map out an area, and it takes a lot of hands on when things go wrong.

AI should fix this

>This holds particularly true for government.

Are you sure?

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I think it is likely one day AI will run the gov. And I think we all will be far more happy with that.

>AI doesn’t meet the legal requirements to hold political office.

You forget laws aren't written in stone. They change ALL the time.

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I think what will happen is an AI will be used as an advisor at first. Something a human political person can ask questions and get solutions from. At first it most likely is a flip of a coin, but assuming if the system is built right and actually used. It will rapidly get better.

We are already seeing where software is allowed to run some companies with DAO. And as that gets better, small towns with honestly no one there who wants to run for office (which there is a lot of them). They are likely to use AI to fill roles. Then it slowly expands and AI becoming a political figure is normal. Once it goes from senate/congress I imagine it will quickly replace the gov as we know it. Like term limits won't be needed for an AI.

Read the second half of my post.

Since I am involved in my agencies current software update, yes.

We are currently updating our front end from ActiveX to a front end more appropriate to 2010. We are looking at 3-5 years for all projects to be completed.

The back end is running on an Access database. Updating the back end is not part of the contract.

Once in place, the new systems are supposed last at least 20 years. I will be retiring by then.

Again after a point I don't think it will matter.

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I never thought I would see the day law makers are bringing to vote to basically abolish the IRS but this is being brought up right now. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11620085/House-Republicans-vote-ABOLISHING-IRS-federal-income-tax.html

Like I doubt this will pass but still.

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Plus all it would really take is for some AI/robots to be recognized with normal human rights. It is likely one day this will happen. Giving it is a citizen and meets the other requirements (age and what not) it could run and it is likely to win. If enough of them win then they can replace the gov.

What I was talking about is AI itself being the boss and what not.

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Like I think this is going to take decades or more. It has to be tested, and then actually implementing it.

I think anyone working today almost any job is safe. At least those older than 35. But many will be the last generation. Like it is likely in 30 years a lot of jobs will be starting to be slowly replaced by AI or robotics.

None of this is happening in the next few years.

And the government will be another 30 years behind that.

Assuming you can get politicians to vote to replace themselves or convince the general population to go along with being governed by computers.

Neither is likely on any time scale, no matter how advanced the AI is.

Something you left off you chart is trust. A lot of people will not trust computers to govern or make decisions that affect how they are governed. It won’t matter how good the computers might be at it.

The Republicans have been trying to defund the IRS for decades.

This is neither new nor surprising. It is the reason the IRS is currently understaffed by ~50,000 people.