3D printing technology that could be abused

People who have been paying attention to 3D printing technology since the beginning of 21st century have long warned that the technology will eventually be used to make weapons. They also suggested that the "replication" nature of the technology could make intellectual property issues a red light for the future development of 3D printers.

3D printing technology that could be abused

Companies always want users to use their products for noble purposes. But futurist Jamais Cascio believes that when people deviate from the original intention of the product developers, improper use of technology, designers can really see the way forward.

First, let's take a look at the representative cases of improper use of technology:

High-frequency trading system attacked

Developers have a big point when it comes to thinking about all the implications of a new technology development. After all, they have developed new technologies that they should think about. In most cases, people are also using new technology as developers expect.

There are, of course, exceptions to the High-frequency trading system: the so-called "high-frequency trading" (High-frequency mini-advertisements), which means that large investment institutions use their high-speed computers to judge valuable information in a very short period of time, before trading with other investors in the market, The deal is characterized by a lot of non-stop trading. This transaction requires the system to obtain information in time to defeat competitors.

In recent months, some trading systems have started using Twitter-based news feeds as a source of information for their campaigns. Such high-frequency trading systems can be manipulated: manipulating the stock market by attacking Twitter news, leading to a plunge in share prices. This sort of thing really happened earlier this year in the United States, where some people-accidentally or accidentally-made a windfall from the stock market.

Possible misuse of 3D printing

Misuse of technology is sometimes a logical consequence of the performance of new technologies. Take a printer for example, it can be seen as a "multi-functional manufacturing" tool, just as a common computer can be considered as a "multi-function computer." The nature of the "multifunction" of computers has led to some legal dilemmas, and the same 3D printers have the potential to make prohibited items. Defense distributed is already making guns out of 3D printers, although it is legal to have guns in the United States, but there are some other countries in the world where gun control is strictly illegal.

For futurists, such technological inflection is not surprising. People who have been paying attention to 3D printing technology since the beginning of 21st century have long warned that the technology will eventually be used to make weapons. They also suggested that the "replication" nature of the technology could make intellectual property issues a red light for the future development of 3D printers.

How do futurists sniff out the opportunity?

New technologies are not created in a vacuum: the interplay of technology and non technical systems and people's needs is a hotbed. Technology abuse is likely to arise in this interaction, and the combination of human-specific goals and technology may completely break the expectations of developers.

Predicting the misuse and unintended outcome of new technology development is not a futurist's game, it's just a precaution, and ideally it will help developers make smarter design decisions. It may not be possible to avoid all the misuse of new tools, but at the very least be prepared to do so in advance.

As a futurist, Jamais Cascio tries to outdo developers in exploring the impact of emerging technologies. His experience is to think about unconventional, outdated and even improper usage. The idea of trying to transcend the boundaries of new tools or new systems is often the most useful: how to hack into a new invention? How do you make a user have access beyond the ordinary user? How can we make users get sexual benefits? As you go along with this clue, you can find more subtle links between current systems and new technologies, Find hidden security vulnerabilities, or even open the product market that was overlooked by the designer.

When mobile-phone camera features and social networking sites are developed, developers may not expect users to use them to send "nude (or almost nude) photos and videos" to their friends. And the Snapchat is called for the photo-sharing tool was developed after the "after" to become the latest sharp entrepreneurial direction.