Everyone thinks the recent availability of 3-D printers is a great thing. Well, not everybody.
What if do-it-yourself fabricating was a ruse to allow manufacturing to be transferred from sweatshops into homes? Writing recently in Le Monde, Johan Soderberg reflects on the positive and negative implication of this emerging technology: “Recently, electronic machines capable of producing objects, functioning as three-dimensional printers are available to the general public. They arouse enthusiasm in a vanguard that sees the seeds of a new industrial revolution. But supporters of these DIY tools technology often forget the story that they were born.
“It would be the industrial revolution of the twenty-first century: what previously had to be purchased in store may now be made at home using tools such as a laser cutter, a 3D printer, a CNC Continue reading “Be careful what you technologically wish for”
