The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI

by Ray Kurzweil

During the late 2020s we will start to be able to print out clothing and other common goods with 3D printers, ultimately for pennies per pound. One of the key trends in 3D printing is miniaturization: designing machines that can create ever smaller details on objects. At some point, the traditional 3D-printing paradigms, like extrusion (similar to an ink-jet), will be replaced by new approaches for manufacturing at even tinier scales. Probably sometime in the 2030s this will cross into nanotechnology, where objects can be created with atomic precision. Eric Drexler’s estimate in his 2013 book Radical Abundance is that, taking into account more mass-efficient nanomaterials, atomically precise manufacturing could build most kinds of objects for the equivalent of about twenty cents per kilogram.[211] Although these figures remain speculative, the cost reduction will surely be enormous. And just as we have seen with music, books, and movies, there will be many free designs available alongside proprietary ones. Indeed, the coexistence of an open-source market—which is and will be a great leveler—with the proprietary market will become the defining nature of the economy in an increasing number of areas.