It just got a whole lot harder to be sure of anything.
Bots that write and $99 3D printers. The world is changing fast
I just spent the weekend at the Maker Faire in San Mateo.
This simple pen writer bot staggered me. Especially its claim to turn ‘your creativity into real pen and paper illustrations’.
What the heck is real anymore?
The question dates back to the first chat rooms of the 1980s and the idea of anonymity online. How could you be certain of who you were interacting with? Text only environments like MUDs and the early IRC chat rooms were potentially anonymous, and that was part of their appeal. Optimists said it would democratize the internet. (Twitter has shown us otherwise of course).
Even at the time it seemed obvious that if you couldn’t see someone, you couldn’t be sure who it was.
But certainty about visual stuff? That took slightly longer to dislodge.
It’s already been a while since we couldn’t be sure if a photo was real or not. Photoshop took care of that for us years ago as it became ubiquitous and less expensive. Part of being computer literate today is knowing not to trust an image at face value.
And now we are either in — or rapidly approaching — the point where you won’t be able to know if the audio file you’re listening to was actually spoken by that person. Or whether the video you’re seeing really happened. Whether that actor spoke those lines before, or after, they died. Whether that politician ever uttered those words at all.
Because even live video is now alterable in real time. We simply won’t be sure.
And now — handwriting.
You won’t be able to know — for sure — if that handwritten note in brown sharpie was actually penned by a person. Or whether it was just a sophisticated piece of software. Even as the ink is still drying.
Handwriting seems so… intimate. So innately, uniquely human.
And we simply won’t be able to tell for sure if it’s real.
Where does that leave us?
If you’re like the 10 year old girl who was watching next to me, it’s great news: “I can get this to do my homework for me!”
I love her enthusiasm. But I’m not so sure. And I’m no Luddite.
I’ve been going to the Maker Faire since it opened in 2006. Along with 22,000 other people that first weekend, I was stunned, amazed, and delighted by what I saw. I was also absolutely hooked.
I come back every year. It’s like coming home. This is my tribe.
And I’m not even a computer geek. I don’t code. I don’t understand electronics. When I look at robotics I have no idea what I’m looking at. I have to have my husband (who is/does all of those things) explain it to me.
But I do understand that when we can 3D print clothing, we’re entering a new phase of humanity. And that fascinates me.
The Maker Faire in San Mateo remains the flagship event of the Maker movement. With 150,000 visitors last year, it’s gotten bigger and more crowded with each year’s event.
A lot has changed since that first Maker Faire. These days, branded Maker Faire tape marks off the entrances, holding back the crowd that gathers before the Faire is officially opened at 10am. As the tape is cut, people flood in across it, eager to get inside and start exploring.
Virtual Reality harbingers
This year on Sunday morning my son raced in at the opening — heading to the Microsoft booth to sign up for a free 10-minute slot demo’ing their HoloLens VR headset. The day before he’d gotten there too late. At full sprint, he managed to get to the booth in time to snag a 3pm slot. There are a lot of people at Maker Faire these days.
Virtual Reality of course has launched an entire area of ethics to confront the question of what it real. The HoloLens and its generation of devices will play a big part in this.
Microsoft has branded what it’s calling ‘mixed reality.’ A digital space overlaid onto a physical one. The vision is to be able to simultaneously, seamlessly act and interact in both. Not a new idea (think Google Glass). But a new take on it, and one that looks to have traction.
I think mixed reality may be the operating metaphor for all of us at this point.
We are emerging into a time when we are seamlessly integrated with our tech.
You’ve heard the boomers complain about millennials being glued to their phones. And it’s true that they text back faster than you can read this sentence. But even the millennials are being outpaced. Kids are now born native to the digital world. They pick up on any of it faster than even their tech-savvy young adult relatives. And take away a boomer’s phone and they’ll feel like an amputee. We all live with our tech. And that’s accelerating.
3D Printing — from what’s real to what’s possible
3D printing is one of the heralds of this acceleration, and it’s mostly coming from small start up companies. What I saw this weekend at Maker Faire confirms how fast it is changing.
Commercially available, affordable 3D printing has come of age at the same time as Maker Faire. Initially what I was just a proof of concept. Then there were a few years of mind bending explorations of the materials and devices. More recently 3D printing has morphed into something that is useful. And in the last couple of years the emphasis has been on what’s marketable.
Since it arrived on the scene, 3D printing has been touted as an equalizer rather than just a gadget. It puts production in the hands of the masses and it brings prototyping costs down dramatically. Hobbyists can make their own tools. You can machine parts that you need, cheaply, without having to go back to the manufacturer. Or better still — replace parts that are no longer in production.
The possibilities are endless really.
Two years ago I watched a shirt — a real, wearable shirt — be 3D printed.
Last year NASA printed its first tool in space.
In the span of about 3 years 3D printed prosthetics have dramatically slashed costs and boosted design aesthetics. Prosthetics that would have cost from $5,000–50,000 can be printed for a few hundred dollars. Sometimes less. They are gorgeous, and the stigma of wearing them has lifted incredibly. That’s phenomenal and life changing. But it’s not yet revolutionary.
Because it is one thing to 3D print real things that already exist out in the world, like tools or engine parts, or even human hands. It’s an entirely different dimension to see new ideas develop because 3D printing exists.
This is where the tech is taking us. And we’re headed there fast.
One small example from this weekend. Makers Making Change is a Canadian group designing 3D printed assistive devices for people with various physical challenges. Their LipSync adapter design allows a quadriplegic person to manipulate a computer mouse.
They also have ingenious 3D printed pieces that fit over the hand — allowing a person who can not physically control their fingers to ‘hold’ a pen or a spoon. These are transformative devices, inexpensively produced. And they would not have been designed within a classic production-model process. But 3D printing creates the possibility for low-cost design exploration and iteration. The fact that 3D printing exists made this kind of design come to life.
What else is waiting to be to conceived?
We’ll know soon. Because as the cost comes down more and more people will start to explore.
And it’s coming down fast.
And 3D printing is now under $100
I saw not one, but two $99 3D printers this weekend. As with all things tech they are smaller, faster, better, and cheaper than the devices released a few years ago.
One of these printers is a desktop model that plugs directly into your laptop’s USB port (Kodama’s Obsidian, shipping end of 2017). It can take 3D printing filament of almost any type. The printed models they had out as demos were elegant, lightweight, and very strong.
The other one is a resin printer that Runs. Off. Of. Your. Smart. Phone. (Ono 3D) It fits into a box that is roughly the size of an iPhone 6S and shorter than the travel mug you drink out of every day. It is powered by the light emitted by your phone. The demo models they had were sturdy, solid, and beautiful.
Things are getting crazier here folks. We’re in for a wild and bumpy ride.
So yeah, that pen writer bot? It’s probably a good thing.
Our tech will neither save us nor ruin us after all. That’s up to us to do.
But this question of reality — and our certainty of it?
That’s going to be with us for a long time.
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