3D printing tech has done leaps and bounds over the last 5-10 years, but my understanding is that printing high quality parts takes lots of time, and hitting the same volume as injection moulding, machining etc is still not possible. Regardless of available tech, an incredible push would need to be done to develop the capacity, and that push needs to materialize yesterday. Short answer, not shot baby
Not even close to possible. Casting and/or CNC, or injection molding machining is still the primary way parts are made, 3D printing is usually used exclusively for prototyping.
Not to mention tolerance/fidelity. One print can be completely off from another due to random shit. If you’re trying to make parts that are consistently the same, you won’t beat the methods you described.
These people think everything is just magic. Add in their arrogance and you get hot takes featured in the OP. “lol stupid machinists why u don’t just push printer button? I could do ur job from my house. U are unskilled labor.”
Tbh 3d prints have high precision compared to other manufacturing methods. I think the biggest problem is some production methods make the material stronger. For example: permenant die casting and bulk metal forming. There is a limit to how strong you can make stuff by just changing the metalurgy. Another example: every bolt used in aviation must have its thread formed by thread rolling. They can not be made with chip removal methods like cnc lathes. Most bolts you see will already fit this criteria but bigger bolts might be made with lathes
It will never be more efficient to 3D print a part that can be made via casting or injection molding. An injection mold takes seconds to make a part that would take a 3D printer many hours. It’s the old Swiss army knife problem. A purpose-built tool will always perform a task better than a general-purpose one.
I’m thoroughly convinced those humanoid robots are just a way to bypass immigration law. The actual AI to run a robot like that in a domestic setting does not exist and will not for decades, if ever. Would you trust ChatGPT to run a robot, in your home, where your family lives? That’s how you end up with your baby in an oven when the damn robot mistakes it for a turkey.
All the tech demos for those robots are actually being live-piloted by human operators wearing haptic suits and VR headsets. They claim this is temporary, but it’s not. We already have doctors doing remote surgeries across the planet. If you can do brain surgery remotely, you can wash dishes remotely.
These robots are not going to be autonomous. They’re going to be deployed in rich countries, remotely piloted by people in poor countries. Workers in poor countries will telecommute to rich countries for menial labor jobs. The rich countries will get the benefits of immigrant labor without providing any of the benefits immigrants normally get. They won’t have a path to citizenship. Their children won’t get citizenship or education. They won’t get healthcare or income assistance benefits.
It seems absurd to go to all this trouble just for some domestic work, but it’s really not. Imagine you can save $10/hour on labor by using one of these robot systems piloted remotely by workers in low wage countries. Even if the robot costs $50k, if you can work them 12 hours per day, that $50k robot will pay for itself in 14 months.
This is also why the robots need to be humanoid. It takes time to train a pilot to remotely operate a robot with a very nonhumanoid shape. But a humanoid robot? You can take someone who never finished the 8th grade, hand them a haptic suit and a VR headset, and they’ll be able to pilot such a robot instantly. But any human without severe neurological illness, regardless of education or background, can safely operate a robot like this. You don’t need to know English or the intricacies of American culture to know that you shouldn’t put a baby in an oven. And if the robot does do something horrible, there’s a human on the other end you can hold responsible for its actions.
This is the critical application of these humanoid robots. We don’t have and may never have the AI to let these things run truly autonomously. Their real killer app is bypassing immigration law, taking advantage of immigrant labor, while offering the immigrants very little benefits beyond a meager wage.
3D printing tech has done leaps and bounds over the last 5-10 years, but my understanding is that printing high quality parts takes lots of time, and hitting the same volume as injection moulding, machining etc is still not possible. Regardless of available tech, an incredible push would need to be done to develop the capacity, and that push needs to materialize yesterday. Short answer, not shot baby
Not even close to possible. Casting and/or CNC, or injection molding machining is still the primary way parts are made, 3D printing is usually used exclusively for prototyping.
Not to mention tolerance/fidelity. One print can be completely off from another due to random shit. If you’re trying to make parts that are consistently the same, you won’t beat the methods you described.
These people think everything is just magic. Add in their arrogance and you get hot takes featured in the OP. “lol stupid machinists why u don’t just push printer button? I could do ur job from my house. U are unskilled labor.”
Tbh 3d prints have high precision compared to other manufacturing methods. I think the biggest problem is some production methods make the material stronger. For example: permenant die casting and bulk metal forming. There is a limit to how strong you can make stuff by just changing the metalurgy. Another example: every bolt used in aviation must have its thread formed by thread rolling. They can not be made with chip removal methods like cnc lathes. Most bolts you see will already fit this criteria but bigger bolts might be made with lathes
That and small batch titanium manufacturing
It will never be more efficient to 3D print a part that can be made via casting or injection molding. An injection mold takes seconds to make a part that would take a 3D printer many hours. It’s the old Swiss army knife problem. A purpose-built tool will always perform a task better than a general-purpose one.
Same reason why robots built to task are better than the scifi human shaped ones
wants to make.
I’m thoroughly convinced those humanoid robots are just a way to bypass immigration law. The actual AI to run a robot like that in a domestic setting does not exist and will not for decades, if ever. Would you trust ChatGPT to run a robot, in your home, where your family lives? That’s how you end up with your baby in an oven when the damn robot mistakes it for a turkey.
All the tech demos for those robots are actually being live-piloted by human operators wearing haptic suits and VR headsets. They claim this is temporary, but it’s not. We already have doctors doing remote surgeries across the planet. If you can do brain surgery remotely, you can wash dishes remotely.
These robots are not going to be autonomous. They’re going to be deployed in rich countries, remotely piloted by people in poor countries. Workers in poor countries will telecommute to rich countries for menial labor jobs. The rich countries will get the benefits of immigrant labor without providing any of the benefits immigrants normally get. They won’t have a path to citizenship. Their children won’t get citizenship or education. They won’t get healthcare or income assistance benefits.
It seems absurd to go to all this trouble just for some domestic work, but it’s really not. Imagine you can save $10/hour on labor by using one of these robot systems piloted remotely by workers in low wage countries. Even if the robot costs $50k, if you can work them 12 hours per day, that $50k robot will pay for itself in 14 months.
This is also why the robots need to be humanoid. It takes time to train a pilot to remotely operate a robot with a very nonhumanoid shape. But a humanoid robot? You can take someone who never finished the 8th grade, hand them a haptic suit and a VR headset, and they’ll be able to pilot such a robot instantly. But any human without severe neurological illness, regardless of education or background, can safely operate a robot like this. You don’t need to know English or the intricacies of American culture to know that you shouldn’t put a baby in an oven. And if the robot does do something horrible, there’s a human on the other end you can hold responsible for its actions.
This is the critical application of these humanoid robots. We don’t have and may never have the AI to let these things run truly autonomously. Their real killer app is bypassing immigration law, taking advantage of immigrant labor, while offering the immigrants very little benefits beyond a meager wage.