‘Fab’ by Neil Gershenfeld, subtitled ‘The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop – from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication’ has been on my ‘must read’ list ever since I first started thinking about my PhD topic. It seemed to be promising to address a lot of the issues I’m interested in regarding what will happen when consumers gain control of the means of production. As such it was something of a disappointment, concentrating mainly on signs of what is happening now, rather than in-depth implications for the future. I think it’s fair to say that ‘Fab’ was written for the ‘average’ reader rather than anyone working in the area of rapid manufacturing or fabbing. But there is still a lot to commend the book, and no doubt that it’s required reading from one of the earliest pioneers in the field.

Gershenfeld begins by describing a class he runs at MIT entitled “How to make (almost) anything,” which introduces students to CNC machines and rapid prototyping technologies. The enthusiasm with which he describes some of the students’ creations: a backpack which lets the wearer scream into it, a bike which can be built from water-jet cut polycarbonate, or a PC input device for parrots, makes clear the passion he has for the subject. It’s also clear that Gershenfeld sees himself as something of a revolutionary, freeing machines from the ownership of corporations and putting them in the hands of consumers, at the same time opening up opportunities for creativity which do not interest profit driven industries. But this passion also causes him to make assumptions about consumers’ motivations which are questionable and far from proven.

For example, in discussing modes of manufacture before industrialisation,” before art was separated from artisans, when production was done for individuals rather than the masses,” Gershenfeld states that

“Life without the infrastructure we take for granted today required invention as a matter of survival rather than as a specialized profession.”

The implication is that today’s situation is a bad thing, and what Gershenfeld wants is “to put the control of the creation of technology back in the hands of its users.” But this ignores the fact that today’s condition wasn’t simply imposed from above, it grew organically, because not everyone is good at inventing everything they need, and some people are not good at inventing anything. It can’t simply be assumed that everyone is a inventor, it needs to be asked whether invention might actually be something that is best left to ‘experts’. This isn’t the same as saying that consumers are not creative, just that people’s skills lie in different areas, and that maybe some people prefer to consume than to create.This theme, that ordinary people have been excluded from the ability to design and make the products they use, continues when Gershenfeld begins to talk about CAD tools. Writing about user interfaces, he sees the problem is that

“people, like printers, are considered to be a kind of computer peripheral requiring a compatible communication interface. There’s been no compelling reason to make engineering software easy to use; these programs have been written by engineers, for engineers, who make a career out of using one of them.”

Of course this is partly true, although it seems to hint at some kind of unspoken conspiracy in the development of CAD software. But what is also surely the case is that as computing power and software capabilities increase, those who buy and use the systems ask for greater functionality. Looking from the outside it seems hideously complex, but from the inside it’s no more complex than what engineers were doing before CAD.The author’s argument is much stronger when he discusses real world examples of people using rapid manufacturing technologies to create products that industry doesn’t think it worth supplying. For a number of years now, Gershenfeld has been setting up ‘Fab Labs’ around the world, some of them in very deprived communities. There are some really inspiring stories of creativity and enthusiasm, from developing low cost refrigeration in Ghana and analytical agricultural instruments in rural India, to jewellery in inner city Boston and GPS devices for sheep in northern Norway. The problem is that the book is somewhat vague in explaining exactly what role rapid manufacturing in general, and the Fab Labs in particular, had in the development of these projects. The sheep GPS network for example, at least as it is described in the text, seems to have been set up by one farmer, in co-operation with a Norwegian mobile operator, before Gershenfeld meets them. And there are a number of other examples which, while undoubtedly interesting, seem only to be demonstrating that people in extreme circumstances are capable of innovating, rather than any involvement with rapid manufacturing.

A mobile Fab Lab in Boston

As the book goes on, the text diverges more and more from describing ‘the coming revolution on your desktop,’ as it sidetracks into descriptions of assembly language programming, RS232 specifications and error correction techniques in network programming. Whilst these are explained in an easy-going and easy to follow manner, for me they just served as distractions, whilst also highlighting the room that could have been made for more in-depth descriptions of fabbing projects and their implications. Nonetheless, Gershenfeld does manage to find room to make an assertion with which I profoundly disagree, when he returns to the subject of CAD software. He writes:

“CAD tools still share a particularly serious limitation: they fail to take full advantage of the evolution of our species over the past few million years. The human race has put a great deal of effort into evolving two hands that work in three dimensions… A frontier in CAD systems is the introduction of user interfaces that capture the physical capabilities of their users… The most interesting approach of all is to abandon the use of a computer as a design tool and revert to the sophisticated modeling materials used in a well-equipped nursery school, like clay.”

Gershenfeld shows some letters, modelled in clay, which are digitized using a 3D scanner. The problem is that they look crap, in fact they look exactly like some letters made in clay. Gershenfeld suggests that because clay can be modelled by hand, and that anyone can understand how to manipulate it, that makes clay a better modelling medium than CAD. But by the same logic a tin can and a stick are better at making music than a piano. CAD systems take advantage (admittedly not perfectly) of what computers are good at – fast, accurate computation and simulation. Yes, it takes a long time to learn how to use CAD, but it takes a lot longer to learn how to sculpt in clay. The “physical capabilities of their users” might simply not be able to make the 3D form in clay, at which point you end up with an unsatisfactory product and the need to use a computer. This, I think, is why haptic modelling systems haven’t taken off – they just replace the expertise required in one medium with expertise required in another.

In the end, this simply wasn’t the book I was expecting it to be. It diverges too far from the central theme and doesn’t cover topics in enough depth. But as an introduction to the subject for someone with an interest in technology it is probably very good. I don’t think I could have got away with not reading Fab, but I’m not sure it will be appearing in my bibliography.

Fab. The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop – from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication
Neil Gershenfeld, 2005
New York: Basic Books
0-465-02746-6