Implications: Societal Collective Outcomes, including Manufacturing

The convergences in advanced science and engineering interconnect with a number of core social issues that include the arrangement of means and modes of production and the associated labor skill requirements, training, costs of investments, and other matters. This chapter suggests that a highly customized, modularized, and broadly distributed manufacturing model is emerging that has great potential globally to open up creativity and access at the same time as it allows establishment of small-scale operations that benefit small communities by enabling them to fulfill their own immediate needs, drawing on local talent and labor, with reasonable investment costs. The trends in manufacturing technology that will contribute to establishment of new models of production include additive and other advanced manufacturing processes; small-scale multifunctional manufacturing; human-like smart robotic assistance; universally accessible, rapidly updatable, individualized education; and a dramatically expanded cyberinfrastructure. The disruptive potential of the trends in knowledge creation and production management suggests the need for a proactive approach to monitoring and governing the changes in manufacturing and society to ensure, in particular, equity of access and positive modes of human–machine interaction.