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Adam, Carmen and Jeff discuss how engineering might change by the year 2040 in this episode of The Engineering Commons.

• Adam hopes to move a little higher into middle management over the next decade… unless he wins the lottery and can immediately proceed to retirement!
• We begin by looking back 23 years, to what engineering was like in 1994.
• Carmen was a wee bit young to be an engineer in 1994, but does recall the first season of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers aired that year.
• There were no “smart” phones in 1994, as the iPhone wouldn’t emerge until 2007.
• Notebook computers were starting to appear in the early 1990s, although Windows 95 had yet to be released.
• Also in the early 1990s, individuals could begin connecting to the internet through local internet service providers (ISPs), rather than dial-up services like Compuserve, Prodigy, or America Online (AOL).
• Jeff recalls getting much of his design information from paper catalogs during this period, with the rare opportunity to use FTP to electronically obtain a spec sheet.
• Hard drive space cost $2,000 per gigabyte (GB) in late 1993.
• In 1994, software was still being loaded onto personal computers using multiple 3-1/2 inch floppy drives.
• Jeff mentions the Engineer of 2020 report from the National Academy of Engineering, as well as the Grand Challenges for Engineering.
• Will we have direct “brain-to-internet” connections by 2040?
• Carmen wonders aloud if advances in computing power and artificial intelligence might make the majority of today’s engineers obsolete by 2040.
• Well before 2040, we can expect robots to displace a lot of blue-collar workers.
• Jeff notes that the number of startup businesses has been declining in recent years (at least in the United States).
• We discuss how 3D printing might influence engineering activities, and manufacturing, over the next two decades.
• Adam describes similarities between 3D printing and concrete deposition via slip forming.
• Consideration is given to how mass customization might influence engineering and product design between now and 2040.
• Adam argues that, even with advanced computing resources, engineers will continue to play an important role in applying engineering theory and intuition to “edge cases” that can’t be fully explored by software algorithms.

Thanks to Dragan Brankovic for providing the photo titled “future.world.” Opening music by John Trimble, and concluding theme by Paul Stevenson.