IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2015 - 77

opened. Out of the box have come some significant
achievements and innovation, but along with these
achievements we are facing a wide array of questionable uses of the technology that can not only cause
harm, but can also disrupt the societal order to which
we have become accustomed.

them on a hot plate. Another unique approach to creating fruit is the molecular gastronomic technique called
spherification. A spherification printer drops liquid flavors into a predetermined shape to create tailor-made
fruits. These are a few examples of 3D printing food
innovations that are being invented.

Ubiquitous Impact on Society

Challenges of 3D Printing

In contrast to the Pandora Box mythology where evil
comes out of the box first, the first 3D printing applications
that were shared were extremely positive.
3D printing is transforming how we design, create
and invent across all levels of society. Education is being
transformed with the introduction of 3D rapid prototyping in many university engineering classes. High school
students are also using the 3DP to create experiential
learning opportunities. Robotics and 3DP are becoming
synonymous; not only can students print out intricate
and expensive robot parts, they can also print fully functioning robots [5]. One of the big winners of the 3DP
revolution will be medicine. The use of 3DP will transform
how we deliver care in the future. It is already becoming
common practice to create 3D models of bones for surgical planning and education. Using 3DPs to create dental
material for prosthodontic is now considered to be more
cost effective and faster than traditional methods [4].
Prosthetics and exoskeletons seem to be the low hanging
fruit from a medical perspective. There are a variety of
successful creations of personalized hands, skulls, and
jaws to address complex patient needs [16]. There are
compelling advances in a field of 3D printing called bioprinting. 3D bioprinting relates to the use of 3D printers
used specifically for medical applications, in contrast to
desktop 3D printers which use materials such as plastic
and nylon. Bioprinter software drives the construction of
living tissue, along with the possibility of one day creating functioning human organs [44]. In January 2014, a
biotech company called Organovo created and supplied
the first 3D liver tissue to an outside laboratory for experimentation, marking a milestone toward the commercial
launch of a 3D liver tissue product.
The field of manufacturing is also being transformed
with 3D printing from the capability of performing rapid
prototyping of new products, and from ideas to develop
complex physical objects such as engines [9]. Space X
is one of the companies considered to be the future of
space travel. With their Dragon spacecraft, Space X has
created the SuperDraco engine chamber using 3D printing using a process called metal laser sintering.
The capabilities of 3D printers such as Foodini, a 3D
fruit printer, and Pancakebot that can create food and
drinks, are aimed at influencing a culinary paradigm
shift. Pancakebot, for instance, extrudes pancake batter into fun art shapes from digital drawings and cooks

With all these great advances being made there is
a need for caution, debate, and deliberation. There
are four main areas that necessitate some additional
research, policies, and ethical attention: food, drugs,
copyright, and intellectual property.

september 2015

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Food
Currently most 3D food printing initiatives do not actually cook the food, but extrude predefined shapes of
food products that can subsequently be cooked [12].
This creates some unique challenges to food safety.
Another major concern is the material used to create eating utensils may not be entirely safe and some
materials and printing processes may cause cancer. The
future potential of 3D foods will depend on customizing
dietary requirements to health and wellness needs.

Drugs
The prospect of printing drugs and pharmacological
chemicals is considered to be of prodigious importance
[10]. Countries around the world are still struggling to
deal with the prescription drug abuse epidemic, along
with the designer drugs phenomenon. Things are only
going to get worse with the advances in 3D designer
drug printing. The most common designer drugs are
derivatives of an existing drug's chemical structure. With
3D designer drug printing, these will typically become
available and sold online. The 3D printing variation uses
techniques such as Dr. Lee Cronin's "Chemputer" which
can create medicine by assembling chemical compounds
at a molecular level. This technique could allow for the
creation of drugs that have similar effects as illicit drugs,
but which legally go under the radar, and are described
as "legal highs." In the future, access to an illicit drug file
could be as simple as accessing an illegal movie or music
file from Bit Torrent. There will be no easy fix to this
foreseeable problem. For example, a digital rights management approach could be applied to prevent printers
from recognizing 3D files for illicit drugs but in reality that
mechanism has not worked well for the entertainment
industry today.

Copyright
There is a misconception that due to the physical objects
created by the 3D printing process, that it represents
a form of disruption different from other IT-related

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