In his second post in the series, Marshall Kirkpatrick focuses on the intersection between artificial intelligence and 3D Printing. By way of reminder, Marshall launched a 30 day series that explores the intersection between AI and various future scenarios anchored by my emerging futures visual.

As Marshall observes, 3D printing has the potential to massively democratize access to manufacturing. 3D Printing is a key driver in the eventual decentralization of current structures. The influencers that Marshall identified through his influencer discovery and research engine are: Brian Federal, Rich Benvin, and Vincent Brissot. These individuals sit at the intersection of 3D Printing and AI, and represent a great source of foresight. Combining this foresight with crowdsourced research, scenarios are identified. The post identifies three scenarios, the most significant being the hyper personalization and rapid delivery that 3D printing and AI enables in the supply chain.

In each post, Marshall provides the foresight of one key influencer. In this post, we hear from filmmaker Brian Federal on AI + 3D printing in the supply chain and beyond –  the birth of mass customization and distributed 3D printing manufacturing. I’ll leave you with a quote from Brian – addressing a very timely topic of ethics in a world of exponential technology.

“Many people have fear about AI becoming autonomous primarily based on popular Books and Films describing a dystopian world ruled by machines. The issue is not the machines because they are just responding to the pure data we are entering and sensors are gathering. The real problem facing us at this time is the evolution of our collective human consciousness. We have the ability to create the world we want, we just don’t collectively understand this fact yet. Basic human failings such as greed and violence echo back to our ancestry and survival mechanisms for food, water, and living space and this is at the core of the problem. We needed this consciousness to survive in the past but it is now time for the monkey to wake up. The most important question we can ask right now in 2016 is what will it take to wake up the monkey inside us all?

In many ways we are still just primitive primates full of fear, greed, and violence. AI will echo this back to us because AI is a pure scientific mirror reflection our collective beliefs and behaviors. It is of vitally important that our species evolve as we move into this next phase of our technological development.”