Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 68 posts

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#11

Post by Chetan496 »

m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

Dockland light railway is completely automated. This train line is in London. I have travelled on it. There is no engine room or train driver. It felt interesting to sit in the very first train cabin which would usually be an engine room in other trains.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#12

Post by kough »

m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

http://www.calibregroup.com/projects/project/autohaul-projec... is the physically largest autonomous system in the world.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#13

Post by ehnto »

akira2501 wrote: post #5

Several issues with this idea: 1) On the open ocean, what is there to even avoid? In the harbor, you often don't have a choice; the harbor master is going to _require_ you to pick up a harbor pilot who is rated and certified for the harbor you'll be in and they must be in command of the ships steering and propulsion in order for your ship to even enter their waters. 2) Only 20% of the global merchant fleet is dedicat…

There are some ships, small sailing ships for example, that do not get picked up by radar. They often need to get radar reflectors fitted to be visible. You certainly wouldn't want to be on a sailing vessel while an automated cargo ship barrels down on you. Sailing ships get right of way to powered ships as well so detecting the difference between vessels is important and the automation would need to take that into account too. Although I am not sure how it actually plays out in practice. I somehow doubt a tanker is giving way to a cruising sail vessel once it is underway.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#14

Post by tialaramex »

m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

The human can look out of the front window and notice that e.g. the cliff above has fallen onto the track, or cows have broken through a fence and are now standing on the track.

Something like the DLR normally operates autonomously, there's a member of staff trained to drive it on every train but it's actually slower and more dangerous if they have to. But that's a completely grade separated system, cows on the DLR is about as likely as cows up the Empire State. And still the first train every morning is manual because maintenance teams are forgetful and a passenger sat at the front doesn't want a metal pry bar in the face when some idiot left it on the track despite checking it off as recovered.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#15

Post by akira2501 »

madrox wrote: post #7
akira2501 wrote: post #5

Several issues with this idea: 1) On the open ocean, what is there to even avoid? In the harbor, you often don't have a choice; the harbor master is going to _require_ you to pick up a harbor pilot who is rated and certified for the harbor you'll be in and they must be in command of the ships steering and propulsion in order for your ship to even enter their waters. 2) Only 20% of the global merchant fleet is dedicat…

I get the impression you didn't actually read the article, as it addresses most of your questions.

> as it addresses most of your questions.

Vaguely suggesting that three different companies are separately attacking different parts of the problem in a very narrow area of the world with special permits and no collective breakdown of their efforts, their progress or their potential benefits didn't seem to effectively address anything nor does it support it's own headline.

The headline was my main beef; but, we could get into the fact that the two most common maritime insurance claims are for weather damage and theft.. striking submerged objects is also a very common one, which is why harbors require skilled pilots with continual testing to bring boats in and out of those waters.

I'm still very much suspicious of these "bolt-on" AI businesses and all the uncritical hype that surrounds them.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#16

Post by akira2501 »

ehnto wrote: post #13
akira2501 wrote: post #5

Several issues with this idea: 1) On the open ocean, what is there to even avoid? In the harbor, you often don't have a choice; the harbor master is going to _require_ you to pick up a harbor pilot who is rated and certified for the harbor you'll be in and they must be in command of the ships steering and propulsion in order for your ship to even enter their waters. 2) Only 20% of the global merchant fleet is dedicat…

There are some ships, small sailing ships for example, that do not get picked up by radar. They often need to get radar reflectors fitted to be visible. You certainly wouldn't want to be on a sailing vessel while an automated cargo ship barrels down on you. Sailing ships get right of way to powered ships as well so detecting the difference between vessels is important and the automation would need to take that into a…

> Although I am not sure how it actually plays out in practice.

There are exceptions, in established shipping (and a few other types of) channels, the sailboat does _not_ have right of way. Also, when sailboats are using their motors for power they are considered motorboats and the special right of way no longer applies. It is also very rare to see a sailboat under sail power in a harbor and large commercial ships are always manually piloted in a harbor.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#17

Post by samcheng »

m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

It's in the works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation

I think unions will get in the way as much as they can, unfortunately. As an example, a 'fireman' rode along on diesel and oil trains LONG after they were rendered obsolete by the fact that there was no longer any coal to shovel.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#18

Post by sho »

m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

What? There are dozens of installations worldwide with many more on the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...

If you are talking about intercity trains instead of metro systems - although metros typically handle many times the number of passengers - China is currently trialling driverless technologies on its Fuxing class HSR on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou route with expected entry into service by 2022.

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#19

Post by m0zg »

sho wrote: post #18
m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

What? There are dozens of installations worldwide with many more on the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_... If you are talking about intercity trains instead of metro systems - although metros typically handle many times the number of passengers - China is currently trialling driverless technologies on its Fuxing class HSR on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou route with expected entry into serv…

Sure, there are autonomous trains in some places, I said so right in my post. But why aren't _all_ of them autonomous by now?

Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans

#20

Post by King-Aaron »

m0zg wrote: post #8

Can someone explain why there aren't that many autonomous _trains_? And I don't mean SFO airport train and others like it, but a real, full-size train moving people or goods around the country. Seems like every other year a train flies off the rails due to nothing more than negligence of train's engineer. Why not automate this completely? You don't even have to steer.

We've had them in Australia's north west for a long time. Interestingly they come with their own set of problems.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/business/mining/derailed-bhp-tra...

Post reply on HN