We've had digital revolutions in communications and computation, but not yet fabrication. Computers control machines that make computers, but a 10-billion-dollar chip fab still uses fundamentally analog materials. Biology provides an alternative model based on programmed assembly of molecular building blocks, offering the same kind of reliability thresholds that enable digital communications and computation. I will present research on fundamentally digital fabrication technologies that merge computation with construction, and illustrate their implications in both developed and developing countries through early access to prototype tools for personal fabrication.
Neil Gershenfeld, "Bits and Atoms" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP21), 2005, pp 2 - 2, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2005.21.1.art00002_1