Making Fabbers Real

Preparing the public, and especially policy makers, for the advent of molecular manufacturing is a difficult job. It is our opinion that this technology will be extremely powerful, potentially disruptive, and could arrive quite suddenly. But how do we communicate such crazy-sounding ideas without coming across as, well, crazy?

This is the challenge that CRN has faced since our founding in late 2002. In that time, we've worked on gathering and presenting evidence to bolster our assertions of how powerful molecular manufacturing will be. We've endeavored to present the facts and the theories as objectively as we can, avoiding hyperbole, dispelling myths, and rejecting fantasies. We've talked about technical matters, societal implications, and policy options to groups around the world.

Now that almost five years have passed, we've seen a significant shift in how people regard the prospect of revolutionary change triggered by atomically-precise exponential manufacturing. It's no longer dismissed as impossible or even implausible. Today the discussion is much more often not whether this technology is coming, but when.

As a result, our emphasis at CRN is changing. We've done a pretty good job of making people believe it's real. Now we have to work on creating a sense of urgency. That means we have to let people see the direct connection between today's science and tomorrow's technology, between present-day developments and near-future disruptions. It's got to be understood not as something that's "out there" but as something that's "almost here."

Jamais Cascio, our new Director of Impacts Analysis, suggests this model for understanding transformative technology risks:

1. Present/near version, with limited but meaningful risks
2. Near/medium version, with broader and more complex risks, but still graspable by non-specialists
3. Medium/end version, with subtle and deeply complex risks, but clearly along the same history as the past versions

For example:

Version 1 - Fabbers
Version 2 - Block fabricators
Version 3 - Nanofactories

Later versions of the technologies need not be derivative from the first, but the risks and the response models should be clearly related. The solutions that work for Version 1 won't work cleanly for Version 2, but will point us in the right direction; similarly, the solutions for Version 2 will give us a leg up on the solutions for Version 3.

This seems like a useful approach, and it's especially helpful when the relevant Version 1 technologies are starting to attract some notice:

Fab at Home, Open-Source 3D Printer, Lets Users Make Anything

Hod Lipson didn't set out to revolutionize manufacturing. He just wanted to design a really cool robot, one that could "evolve" by reprogramming itself and would also produce its own hardware -- a software brain, if you will, with the ability to create a body. To do this, Lipson needed a rapid-prototyping fabrication, or "fabber."

Picture a 3D inkjet printer that deposits droplets of plastic, layer by layer, gradually building up an object of any shape. Fabbers have been around for two decades, but they've always been the pricey playthings of high-tech labs -- and could only use a single material.

"To really let this robotic evolutionary process reach its full potential," says Lipson, a Cornell University computer and engineering faculty member, "we need a machine that can fabricate anything, not just complex geometry, but also wires and motors and sensors and actuators."€

Lipson and his grad student collaborators, Dan Periard and Evan Malone, decided to put the problem to the people. They developed a low-cost, open-source fabbing system -- Fab at Home -- and encouraged experimentation by starting an online wiki for hobbyists.

A Fab at Home kit costs around $2400. Lipson compares it to early kit computers such as the MITS Altair 8800, which democratized computer technology in the 1970s. At-home fabrication, Lipson says, "is a revolution waiting to happen." As for that robot? Wait a year, he says, and it really will walk out of the machine.

That's the sort of story that will help people accept the near-future reality of revolutionary desktop manufacturing. Of course, a fabber like the one described above is not the same as a nanofactory (it's not even a direct ancestor), and it probably will not have nearly as much impact, but it definitely does make a difference in communicating the essence of what CRN is talking about.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[Jamais Cascio]

Just to make it a bit more explicit, I'm *not* saying that fabbers lead to block fabricators lead to nanofactories. What I'm saying is that the kinds of economic, political and cultural reactions we have to the earlier, similar, technologies will directly shape how we react to the later ones. Getting the policies right, and making the implications explicit, with the present-day technologies will help to make sure that we're ready for the later ones.

[jim moore]

Mike,
I think that focusing on Fabbing is the right approach for CRN, for a number of reasons.
First, as you stated there already is some limited, but growing capability in home fabbing.
Second, there is a growing community of people/organizations/companies involved with home fabbing.
Third, the paradigm of block fabbers is a major improvement on the conventional 3-D plotter/printer paradigm. (I consider the fleshing out of the concept of block fabbing to the biggest contribution the CRN community has made over the last 5 years.)
Finally, when I review CRN's 8 scenarios leading up to nanofactories, the only one I like to see in real life is #2 Fabbing to Nanofactories (not the real title).

[Giulio Prisco]

I have been following fabbing tech for some time now. The first time I heard of fabbing I thought, this is potentially revolutionary technology with a clear evolutionary path toward matter compilers based on molecular nanotech for consumers. I agree with Jamais, this is something CRN should be involved with.

[Ray Phoenix]

As Mike points out,

'A Fab at Home kit costs around $2400. (Rob) Lipson compares it to early kit computers such as the MITS Altair 8800, which democratized computer technology in the 1970s. At-home fabrication, Lipson says, "is a revolution waiting to happen." As for that robot? Wait a year, he says, and it really will walk out of the machine.'

To get a feel for just what Rob means about the robot, take a look at the following Ted Talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/165
Rob Lipson describes a 'self aware robot', and demonstrates some truly remarkable hardware. Filmed March 2007. No, he doesn't show the fabber, but his talk is definitely worth a look!

[Ray Phoenix]

Ouch. That's obviously Hod Lipson, not Rob. Sorry.