Is 3-D printing really going to change the way we live?

Historically, technology has had the potential to revolutionise our society, often in ways that are completely unpredictable. I fondly remember the introduction to the Commodore Amiga game ‘Wings’, a game based around Second World War dogfights, which featured a quotation from Orville Wright, who was involved in the building and testing of the world’s first aircraft: “We thought that we were introducing into the world an invention which would make further wars practically impossible.”

Similarly many initially scoffed at the transformative potential of the Internet, believing that it wouldn’t have a huge impact on commerce. A couple of decades later, and the Worldwide Web has profoundly altered the commercial marketplace, as well as having a massive and lasting impact on the way that we interact with one another, and produced huge sub-cultures all of its own.

Thus, history is replete with examples of technology whose impact was underestimated or initially dismissed. The same cannot be said of a a new technology which its currently taking its first baby steps in the public domain. 3-D printing has been exposed to huge media attention all over the world, but has particularly garnered attention in the United States, where the debate over gun control has been catalysed once again by the apparent ability of this technology to manufactures firearms.

But wherever one stands on the gun control debate, there is no doubt that this technology also has the potential for healthy and beneficial applications. Just days ago when making predictions about what the world will be like in 2100, the BBC science presenter James Burke stated that he believed all forms of human need and scarcity would simply have been permanently obliterated by this date, largely due to this revolutionary new technology.

These are bold predictions indeed, so as the first 3-D printing services go live in high streets across the country courtesy of Asda, are we really witnessing a technology that will utterly transform human existence as we know it, or will 3-D printing have a more minimal impact than some of the more confident predictors are currently prognosticating?

In precedent terms, human society has often developed in a way that is incomprehensible even to the most perceptive of individuals. While science-fiction writers have frequently predicted elements of society with incredible precision and foresight, they have also either underestimated over overestimated technological advance in many ways. Thus, flying cars and intergalactic space travel are far from within our parameters at present, but it is quaint and amusing to witness, in series such as ‘Star Trek’, humans that have incredible space travelling technology, but inferior telecommunications technology to the present day!

Nonetheless, one must pay attention to the predictions which are being made about 3-D printing. The overwhelming consensus of opinion among the scientific community is that this is a truly transformative technology that will create the sort of paradigm shift in human society that the television, automobile and personal computer have previously.

An exhibition currently taking place at the Science Museum in London very much echoes these sentiments. The exhibition purports that in the future everyone will have one of these devices in their home, and proposes a timeline in which it will be possible to produce components for spaceships and bodily limbs and organs within the comfort of one’s own home. This is not entirely based on supposition regarding hich direction this technology may develop, but instead on the existing tech which is available now. It has already been possible for surgeons to carry out reconstructive surgery using implements produced via 3-D printing.

While history has taught us that the path of human endeavour and development rarely runs in a smooth predictable arc, it does seem that 3-D printing offers a potential revolution of possibility. In a world in which too many people have suffered for too long from scarcity and lack of access to both resources and opportunities, one sincerely hopes that 3-D printing is a technology that can begin to redress the balance.

Christopher Morris is a regular contributor to Yahoo on television, cinema, video games, technology and politics.

Is 3-D printing really going to change the way we live?