Will.i.am, the global music superstar and 3D printing pioneer, predicts entire humans will be 3D printed ‘in our lifetime’, with experts saying printing human tissue like organs and blood vessels is only a decade away.

The Black Eyed Peas frontman, who also serves as chief creative officer for 3D printing company 3D Systems, told Dezeen magazine the plausible growth in the technology is ‘scary’.

“Right now we can print in post-consumer plastics. We can print in aluminium, which is bigger machines and awesome. We can print in titanium, which is pretty freaking crazy and amazing,” he says.

“We can print in steel, which is freaking hardcore. You can print in chocolate, and that's sweet. You can print in freaking protein, you can make freaking meat. You can print leather. You can print a liver.

“So if you can print a liver or a kidney. God dang it, you're going to be able to print a whole freaking person. And that's scary.”

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With the technology potentially giving humans ‘god-like tools’, Will.i.am says new a new system of ‘morals, ethics, codes’, with new responsibilities, will be needed.

“Moses comes down with the 10 commandments and says ‘Thou shalt not…’ He didn't say shit about 3D printing,” he says.

“New morals, new laws and new codes are going to have to be implemented. Humans – as great as we are – are pretty irresponsible. Ask the planet. Ask the environment.

“Something has to be instilled into us. We're going to a place we've never been before. We made a Will, we made a car, we made a house, we made a boat, we made flying machines. Before, when it was time to reproduce you had to mate. But now…”

The rapper also predicts 3D printing technology will make Star Trek-style teleportation possible, with 3D printers that disintegrate the source and rebuild it elsewhere.

“You're starting with beef, and leathers, and body parts. Eventually it will get more complex. It's basically ‘beam me up, Scotty’,” he says.

You can read the entire off-the-wall interview here.

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