I am in Canada but the bills proposed in Washington, potentially NY too. Any thoughts?
First, in both cases, this is proposed legislation. If the recent comment about the 2nd amendment over ruling, then no one has anything to worry about.
Second, since many 3D printers are manufactured in China and the Chinese government would love to put spyware in every 3D printer, this could become a world-wide thing. Where this goes all depends on your view of a dystopian world.
The middle ground is that New York and Washington state(s) lose the ability to own 3D printers and this means nothing to the rest of the world. Considering that most 3D printers are controlled by microcontrollers that have no way of conducting AI tasks means major redesign and cost to 3D printers (and those we already own are exempt) and that alone is enough of a barrier that manufacturers would simply stop shipping printers to the US and focus on the rest of the world.
California and NJ now too. It is worry because they all have the same issue there is no way to implement the controls they are talking about. It also hits CNC and Laser cutting. I don’t think it is possible to ge passed but it does show a belief that 3d printers can print a full gun. Partally true most ‘reliable’ ones use a receiver if nothing else, often the whole upper. I think the concern is the perception. That a 100% 3d printed firearm is common o likely, and that a printer or slicer could accurately recognize a gun. Its not like all guns must have Omron rings to work.
Something I didn’t realize until I watched a more recent Loyal Moses video, it’s not the machines that are the issue, but the slicer. It seems that since Bambu Labs has been moving toward a closed eco system, they are already prepared to put control in place (since you have to use their slicer and access the cloud for authentication to send gcode to a printer).
I have to ask, though, how does this affect anyone OUTSIDE the United States. Will we (Canadian or elsewhere) have to validate our files against an American or Chinese server? How can American state law enforce this against someone outside the US?
I don’t care so much about the restriction on 3D printing guns or someone else’ intellectual property (as Loyal Moses points out that all of this can be extended for DMCA); but rather the oversight and who is making the decision.
IF big if they need to write recognition into the slicer it I would expect if Prusa writes it in it will be in Orca and Bambu no matter where you are. Bambu might anyway writing two different software titles is unlikely. It will come to market share.