#46: 3D Printing

Ian Bowie
Hello and welcome to AI unfiltered with me Ian Bowie, and our resident expert, Michael Stormbom, where we will be talking about everything to do with AI in our modern digital society and what the future holds for all of us.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, 3d printing, I’ve noticed that there have been some massive advances in the last probably what, two years even in the capabilities of 3d printers and then the pricing, which has really come down.

Michael Stormbom
For sure. I mean, you can buy it as you buy a regular 2d printer these days. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, except you can do a lot more with a 3d printer. In terms of interesting and cool stuff.

Michael Stormbom
I have a 3d printer at home. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
All right.

Michael Stormbom
I think we’ve spoken about on the show before.

Ian Bowie
Possibly, yeah, yeah. My memory is not what it used to be. But yeah, I’m sure we have.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Entry level model, but you can can get them quite cheap.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Yep. I mean, you can actually get quite advanced models for just a couple of 1000 which sounds like a lot of money. But actually when you think about what what it does is no money at all.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. And I mean, you can also use different… there are even these metallic 3d printers to print in metal.

Ian Bowie
Yes, yeah.

Michael Stormbom
You probably can’t buy it for your home but you can… and wood, I have seen 3d printing…

Ian Bowie
And concrete I’ve actually seen on YouTube a 3d printed home

Michael Stormbom
Is it concrete? Yeah, yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, the printed a whole house. Not bad.

Ian Bowie
We should print a recording studio for ourselves.

Ian Bowie
Well, we could do that. It’d be rather nice, wouldn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, if you now start thinking about the future, and what kind of jobs will people have and of course, if you think about, you know, we’ve talked so much about AI, replacing so many jobs. And of course, of course, AI could probably be programmed to print all kinds of stuff, or design all kinds of stuff that could then be printed.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, you know, I just saw… this was from Open AI our good friends by behind GPT and DALL-E, there’s a it’s called a POINT-E. Okay, so same ideas as dolly but your input a text and then it generates a 3d model for you.

Ian Bowie
Really? Yeah, all right. So forget that idea then but no, no… Yeah, yeah. And yeah, but but actually, again, you know, we’ve talked about this with GPT three, that and also DALL-E, that it only generates something depending on the quality of the input of the instructions.

Michael Stormbom
Yes. And it’s trained on material that already exists. Well, that’s right. Yeah, exactly. Something someone has created obviously.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So So I think POINT-E is gonna be the same, isn’t it? It’s only going to create a 3d printable image based on a…

Michael Stormbom
3d model, and it’s not that they are… basically the way they do it. There’s just points in it. So it’s not really a 3d model just yet that’s printable, but I mean, obviously is going in that direction. Yeah, yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, eventually.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, but I mean, I tried to create a 3d model of a hedgehog and it produced complete… it was not a hedgehog. Yeah, so we’re not quite there yet.

Ian Bowie
I mean, you know, these 3d printers and also the, the material that they use to print you know, the prices have come down so much that they are affordable now to the masses. And also 3d design software. As you know, there are software design programs, which which are very, very affordable nowadays.

Michael Stormbom
I’m using Blender which is completely free. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Well, there you go. You’re on free. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it suddenly opens up a whole kind of new possibility for desktop industries. You know, people sitting at home and designing all kinds of things. For example, I know one guy, and he plays some rather strange game, where you have lots of different figures and

Michael Stormbom
It’s Warhammer by any chance?

Ian Bowie
Yeah, it might it might be that Yeah. And of course, actually, there’s quite a big market for characters for that game.

Michael Stormbom
So he’s printing Warhammer figurines? Yep, yep. And selling them. Right. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
So you know, even that sounds silly, but there’s a market for it.

Michael Stormbom
Ya know, I think it’s very cool. All around. I have 3d printed like, a ring for myself with the color of the flag of Åland.

Ian Bowie
Fair. Okay. Well, you could probably sell those on the market in the summertime to tourists.

Michael Stormbom
No, it just that the manufacturing time. It takes me a while because they are of course different colors there. So you need to print them in… each part in the different color, and then glue it together, so it’s not quite there yet.

Ian Bowie
Not quite. I mean, there are other things you could probably 3d print and sell on the market.

Michael Stormbom
No, for sure.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, or eBay or Etsy or all that stuff. See, or wherever. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s pretty cool.

Michael Stormbom
It’s very cool. And I mean, of course, I dabble a little bit with this electronics stuff. So I created like plastic boxes to contain the stuff in. And that sort of thing.

Ian Bowie
Your bomb making materials.

Michael Stormbom
I can neither confirm nor deny…. No, but yeah, I’m just controlling the lights.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, but no, I mean, I know somebody who actually 3d printed himself a bicycle pedal.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I mean, I’m printing bending parts for things that are broken for sure.

Ian Bowie
And somebody else printed funny little plastic cogs that he needed to repair part of the vent system in his Jag.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I mean, I can imagine that. Yeah,

Ian Bowie
But chess pieces. I always thought chess pieces will be fun. Because I like chess. I’m I’m not very good. But I enjoy chess and I like all the different you know, styles of chess pieces that you can have and I just thought you know, you could..

Michael Stormbom
We could have the AI Unfiltered chess set.

Ian Bowie
Hey, that would be good.

Michael Stormbom
We could have Elon Musk could be the king. I don’t know how the queen would be.

Ian Bowie
Elon musk, all of the pieces are Elon Musk in various shapes and sizes.

Michael Stormbom
Except for the pawns. They are the investors.

Ian Bowie
But don’t you think be pretty funky?

Michael Stormbom
It would definitely? Yeah. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
We could actually we could get DALL-E to create the drawings and then based on the drawings, we create a 3d model and then print them Yeah, with an AI unfiltered chess set. Which then we could sell to order.

Michael Stormbom
We definitely could.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, definitely.

Michael Stormbom
So look for that on the website.

Ian Bowie
Definitely yeah, yeah.

Michael Stormbom
I mean, of course there is the the environmental footprint. So with the plastic. It’s kind of biodegradable except it isn’t really.

Ian Bowie
Yeah but you just said. You can also print in metal.

Michael Stormbom
You can print in metal if you have a metal 3d printer. Yes.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So there you go. Yeah. We’re printing gold.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, but you need to the gold then to…

Ian Bowie
Solid gold chess pieces people? Yep.

Michael Stormbom
We just need the gold to print in. This is no alchemy, you actually need the gold to…

Ian Bowie
Maybe somebody would like to sponsor us.

Michael Stormbom
We want to create an alchemy device, Alchemy, 3d prints your substances. Just take molecules and rearrange them.

Ian Bowie
it’s called fool’s gold. Yeah,

Michael Stormbom
Do look for that on our website as well. Absolutely. Alchemist 3d printer.

Ian Bowie
But I think it’s really good. There was a guy and this is years ago, and he’s a jewelry designer. And they used to 3d print the jewelry or at least the the the molds that he used.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Because then you get the same thing every time.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that was years ago. I think those printers were probably quite expensive.

Michael Stormbom
Wuite expensive, but I mean, really, these entry level ones so I mean the one that I have at home, that’d cost me 300 bucks. Right?

Ian Bowie
And they’re quite good…

Michael Stormbom
They’re quite decent. I mean, obviously, if you want something super high precision, then you would probably need something a little bit more. But as a starter 3d printer. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Do you use it very much.

Michael Stormbom
Quite a bit, maybe not so much in the past few months, when you run out of things to print.

Ian Bowie
So how much have you printed?

Michael Stormbom
Quite a bit, I mean, I have tons of different colors.

Ian Bowie
So what’s the most interesting thing that you’ve printed?

Ian Bowie
Well, at some point, because I was then sort of learning 3d modeling at the same time. So then I was designing these sort of like hearts, heart shaped things. So again, with the colors of the flag of Åland. And then there was one with the… well in various colors then there’s the Faroe Islands for some reason and Ireland.

Ian Bowie
Because you’ve been printing islands.

Michael Stormbom
I’ve been printing hearts with the colors of the flag of Ireland

Ian Bowie
Dee with the colors of the flags. So not not the outline of the actual islands

Michael Stormbom
No, but maybe that’s the next project.

Ian Bowie
Have you printed anything interesting?

Michael Stormbom
Well, I find them interesting.

Ian Bowie
Right? Okay.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. What’s in housing for the electronics and

Ian Bowie
Oh your little boxes?

Michael Stormbom
Little boxes, yes. Yeah. So I mean, that was my original data so that you can combine it with like, if you do like, like an electronic port prototype, and then you have the the box on it. And obviously, obviously, is not the finished manufactured product, but it’s more like a, like a prototype.

Ian Bowie
Right? If you 3d print something. I mean, that’s not necessarily the actual product, is it?

Michael Stormbom
No, I mean, that’s literally in this case, like a prototype. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
But I mean, like, for example, right? I mean, but for example, if we did those chess pieces, would that would that actually be the product?

Michael Stormbom
I mean, if or if it’s made to order, and that would be product yes, because otherwise we would have to do it in such a mass production setup.

Ian Bowie
So you see, this is what I haven’t understood about 3d printing yet. If somebody ordered 50 kings. Yeah, or 50 chess pieces, or chess sets from us. We couldn’t 3d print all of them. I mean, that would take too much time and expensive 3d printing material.

Michael Stormbom
Well the 3d printing materials not too bad. I think it’s more of a time perspective. That’s big of what it takes to print 50 of those. Yeah, obviously once if you have a 3d printer, once one thing is printed, then you need to go there, take away the stuff and restart the process, so we need to sort somewhat monitor it at least, can’t leave it unattended.

Ian Bowie
So in actual fact, you’d be better off just creating molds.

Michael Stormbom
Yes, yeah. Yeah. Pour the metal into…

Ian Bowie
Yes. Yeah. So it’s

Michael Stormbom
The mold really needs to be able to stand the metal, of course.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, of course. But I mean that so it’s actually more for low production runs of something, isn’t it?

Michael Stormbom
I would say so. 3d pritning has a role, but it’s very, maybe very early in the stage.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. So it’s just for prototyping and things like that.

Michael Stormbom
I would say so. Yeah. Or you if you need like a spare piece for, a spare part, for something or the other. Yes.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, like a little plastic thing. For your car or whatever. Yeah. You could 3d print keys, couldnt you.

Michael Stormbom
For a keyboard. Yeah, why not? Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Now I was thinking about proper keys that open things.

Michael Stormbom
Oh those sorts of keys. You know, I don’t think the material is strong enough to…

Ian Bowie
Well the metal would be.

Michael Stormbom
The metal one would be yes. Yeah. Yeah. Although there are those locks that has a digital aspect in nowadays as well.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, but there’s not that many of those around yet.

Michael Stormbom
After the show they will be… hey you can 3d print keys,

Ian Bowie
Oh shit. Well, that’s that’s all for another episode, which is sort of the Internet of Things and smart homes, isn’t it? But, but no, you know, if you want to make a bit of pocket money for yourself, print it and see if you can sell it. Yeah, you could print key rings, couldn’t you in the colors of the Åland Islands. Sure. You start selling those on the market now?

Michael Stormbom
Well, or what I did with the hearts, put like a magnet on the back on it’s a fridge magnet.

Ian Bowie
Ah, have you sold them?

Michael Stormbom
No, I did for just..

Ian Bowie
For fun, for your own amusement.

Michael Stormbom
It was a long pandemic. What can I say?

Ian Bowie
Yeah, so your fridge is now covered in Åland. It’s like magnets

Michael Stormbom
Of various flags, yes.

Ian Bowie
Various flags. Faroe Islands. Interesting choice.

Michael Stormbom
I wanted the flags that very easy to replicate

Ian Bowie
You haven’t done the Union Jack.

Michael Stormbom
Now that got a little bit complicated.

Ian Bowie
Boy. What a shame. Yeah, you could print your favorite toy cars, couldn’t you or just cars in general. I’m looking at my desk here and I’ve got a Citroen DS sitting there.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I mean, there’s a if you’re looking for 3d models, there’s this site called Thingiverse. For examples, you can find models that are printable,

Ian Bowie
You just download them?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, you just download them.

Ian Bowie
Now that is quite cool.

Michael Stormbom
Or you can share your creations there for other people. To print. Nice.

Ian Bowie
And then sell them.

Michael Stormbom
I would advise against that.

Ian Bowie
So what’s it called again?

Michael Stormbom
Thingiverse.

Ian Bowie
Classic. Yeah,

Michael Stormbom
I’m sure there are plenty others as well.

Ian Bowie
Is there anything good on there?

Michael Stormbom
There are models for all sorts of stuff. I mean, I’m bet you can find your car on there.

Ian Bowie
My Citroen DS, really.

Michael Stormbom
Well, I bet. Yeah. For example. I seem to remember for example, finding a Ferrari Testarossa on there.

Ian Bowie
Oh, okay. Do you not think Ferrari might have something to say about that?

Michael Stormbom
They might. So we just we just caused some problems for…

Ian Bowie
Why buy one when you can print it.

Michael Stormbom
I mean for, you know, toy cars, not…

Ian Bowie
Listen if you’re gonna do it man, go big.

Michael Stormbom
Metal printer and a…

Ian Bowie
The engine will be missing wouldn’t it.

Michael Stormbom
You could 3d print the parts for that one as well.

Ian Bowie
Well you could. Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, if you think potentially, these spare parts companies are going to lose quite a bit of money for certain things, you know many things you know, non mechanical or non electronic things. I mean, like door handles, little plastic bits of trim you know, all the kinds of things that eventually crack break drop off, whatever.

Michael Stormbom
Sure. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have a metal 3d printer in my home because that sounds a bit dangerous but I mean there are those online services where you like here’s a model 3d printed for me in metal. Yeah, no.

Ian Bowie
That’s quite nice. It is quite an interesting concept. This idea of 3d printing.

Michael Stormbom
It is, it hasn’t really caught on.

Ian Bowie
No. That’s quite surprising, isn’t it because you would have thought it would have gone mainstream by now and it hasn’t.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, well, I guess the 3d modeling part is still. I mean, yes, there are those free applications and so forth, but there’s still a bit of a learning curve if you want to use them.

Ian Bowie
Even the free ones, or you mean, the design programs. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, it’s not morally correct to use thingy.com or whatever it is.

Michael Stormbom
Depends on the use case and depends on what the uploading user has said about it. I mean, if you need for example, there is that specific spare part that you need, you find a model for it on Thingiverse then, why not? Yeah. But in terms of designing your own, then obviously, you need to be able to work with a 3d modeling program.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. starts getting complicated.

Michael Stormbom
There is a little bit of a learning curve, I think. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. And you’ve got to have the aptitude for it as well.

Michael Stormbom
But yeah, no, I mean, if there’s just repositories like Thingiverse, where you can just download whatever model you need for whatever purpose, then print it then. Then why not?

Ian Bowie
Yeah I suppose yeah, why not? Absolutely.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. Then again, how many spare parts have I replaced in the in the past year?

Ian Bowie
You don’t even have a car so I mean, yeah. And my car hopefully, touch wood, is too new.

Michael Stormbom
Actually, the car should come with a free 3d printer so you can maintain the thing yourself.

Ian Bowie
No, but I mean, it’s a silly thing, but there’s a guy I know. The you know, the toilet seat that you sit on. Underneath there are three kind of block things that keep it all balanced. Well, at his place of work. One of those had somehow gone missing. Don’t ask me how I haven’t got no idea. But he just 3d printed anyone and fitted it and that was it. Boom. Yeah. silly things like that.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, yeah. And I 3d printed a hangers for like have some…

Ian Bowie
Hooks.

Michael Stormbom
Hooks for the wall or putting in like a painting.

Ian Bowie
Oh, right. Yeah, picture hooks. Yeah. Cool. That’s quite funny.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. I mean, of course I might as well just have bought them…

Ian Bowie
I suppose it was more fun and a bit of a challenge to.. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there’s all kinds of funny funny little things that you could do for yourself. Couldn’t you.

Michael Stormbom
Of course in relation to that, the price of that… Okay, so to replace one hook that costs seven cents. So there’s a little bit…

Ian Bowie
Yeah, but there have been some quite enterprising souls who’ve been 3d printing themselves guns.

Michael Stormbom
There are.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, that’s a bit of a challenge… I mean, they’re plastic. They’re plastic. Yeah. So that can’t be detected by metal detectors.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, and not to mention that you can. If it’s illegal to buy a gun, you can 3d print it yourself. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Because you can imagine you you know, the idiot terrorist. Who decides that he wants better quality so he 3d prints his in metal and gets caught?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, yeah. scary thought in itself. If you have access to a metal 3d printer. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Well, yeah, because I mean, like, for example.

Michael Stormbom
You can make sharp objects.

Ian Bowie
Oh, my God knows. Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, these decommissioned guns. I think there are only a lot of them are decommissioned simply by removing the firing pins would be a doddle to 3d print one. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
Now that’s a horrifying thought. So don’t really 3d print…

Ian Bowie
No but I mean, of course, you know, there’s, I suppose it’s the same with absolutely everything you can possibly imagine. There’s a good side and the bad side?

Michael Stormbom
Absolutely. Absolutely. During the pandemic an Italian company started 3d printing emergency valves for oxygen masks that are connected to the ventilators that are so crucial in treating severe cases of Corona, and they did it for an overall hospital in Italy, where the manufacturer couldn’t keep up with the sharp increase in demand that Corona had caused. So a potential life saving use of 3d printing there. Another areas in creating prosthetics so where 3d printing can make the process cheaper, faster and adapted to the individual wearer and available to more people. Just to mention a few examples. You know, so many, for example, you’re somewhere far in a remote area and you need to get stuff, then.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I know. But come on, you know, you’re in a remote area of the world. You’re hardly going to have a 3d printer in your back pocket are you.

Michael Stormbom
When you make it into town? You can buy one?

Ian Bowie
Yeah. In some isolated village, in the back end of nowhere, and then the local shop just happens to have a 3d printer in stock. Yeah. And then you just pull it I suppose. I don’t know. Can you hook it up to a mobile phone?

Michael Stormbom
Oh, yes. I think you can.

Ian Bowie
I suppose you could couldn’t say you got a mobile phone. Yeah. Have 3d printer, will travel. I was sort of looking around the room wondering what else could be 3d printed. Tools, various tools, actually. Yeah. 3d print yourself a spanner.

Michael Stormbom
How about 3d printing yourself a 3d printer.

Ian Bowie
Minus the electronic parts that make it work. Yeah. The part’s with a 3d printer. Certainly. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
So if your 3d printer breaks. Then you can’t print parts for it. But you just have to anticipate breaking every parts before that.

Ian Bowie
How long have you had yours?

Michael Stormbom
Two years. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Okay. And it’s still working okay?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, yeah, it’s working fine.

Ian Bowie
It’s not bad for 300 euros.

Michael Stormbom
No, it’s quite alright.

Ian Bowie
How big is it?

Michael Stormbom
Well, it is fairly, fairly large. So it would be like..

Ian Bowie
Half a meter? All right. That’s huge.

Michael Stormbom
It’s always this cubi thing.

Ian Bowie
That’s actually rather large.

Michael Stormbom
It’s a fair size.

Ian Bowie
Because I’ve seen the professional ones, like new ones. Slightly smaller than what you just described. But they’re pretty good. And they’re quite quick as well. That’s the difference. I think they’ve also increased in speed.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I think that’s pretty cool. I mean, yes. The one that I have, if you print something more complicated, then of course it takes it can take a long while.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Well, back in the day, you literally designed something and then you put the printer on overnight. And it was ready for you in the morning. That’s how it used to work. I think it’s a bit quicker than that nowadays. Yeah. For certain things depending on what you’re printing.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. So I mean, in the future, it’d be like to the replicators on Star Trek. Yes. I want a bowl of soup and it 3d prints it.

Ian Bowie
Funny, funny.

Ian Bowie
You’ve been listening to me, Ian Bowie, and my colleague Michael Stormbom. On AI Unfiltered and for more episodes. Please go to aiunfiltered.com. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai