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

forbes.com

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

#31

Post by senectus1 »

samplatt wrote: post #28
jcranmer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming you're talking about the kind of trains pulling 1,000 mile runs as opposed to metro trains. Train drivers do more than just drive a train. They also have to deal with dropping off and picking up cars from the consist. They also need to monitor track conditions that aren't necessarily easy to pick up from track circuits, such as deep snow ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yja2VmZOfdA shows you how some tr…

The mining operations in Western Australia have also invested heavily in autonomous EVERYTHING. The massive dump-trucks and drill rigs are going autonomous, with anywhere between 10% and 100% (depending on the site) of the heavy vehicles are now driverless.

not a lot of autonomous trains though... interestingly.

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

#34

Post by wefarrell »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #29
ehnto wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Might makes right. Sailing vessels only get right of way with small vessels. You can't sail your little 20 ft trailer sailer in front of a container ship and expect them to give way. I can't remember what the actual rule is, but I think it's somewhere around the 250 t mark that sailing boats no longer have right of way.

The exceptions have nothing to do with tonnage and everything to do with maneuverability, either due to the nature of work or the need to stay in a channel to prevent running aground.

Of course you can’t expect a tanker to break/turn on a dime, but there’s nothing in the rules about tonnage.

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

#35

Post by CGamesPlay »

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…

We call it “the tonnage rule”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define....

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

#36

Post by taneq »

King-Aaron wrote: post #20
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...

> "...a driverless train..."

> "The driver had stepped off the train..."

It wasn't a driverless train (except in the technical sense that the driver wasn't onboard) and the quote comes from CFMEU (for non-locals, that's the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, a massive workers' union) which has a vested interest in pushing back against automation.

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

#37

Post by Slartie »

blauditore wrote: post #32

I wonder if that's on purpose, but I interpreted the title as metaphorical first, thinking it was another dystopian fantasy about computers taking over the world.

I went on a similar, but slightly different path. I thought it was an article not so much about a dystopian fantasy, but about the harsh (and in some ways also dystopian) reality of AI and ML systems not being "debuggable" and understandable by humans like traditional algorithmic systems had been, which effectively means that we can only reason about decisions of such systems to a very limited degree.

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

#38

Post by SenHeng »

blauditore wrote: post #32

I wonder if that's on purpose, but I interpreted the title as metaphorical first, thinking it was another dystopian fantasy about computers taking over the world.

I thought so but then I saw that it was forbes and quickly figured it was simply a pun and it probably refers to some kind of automated sailing system.

I've only read the first paragraph of TFA and it looks like I was right.

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

#39

Post by King-Aaron »

taneq wrote: post #36
King-Aaron wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> "...a driverless train..." > "The driver had stepped off the train..." It wasn't a driverless train (except in the technical sense that the driver wasn't onboard) and the quote comes from CFMEU (for non-locals, that's the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, a massive workers' union) which has a vested interest in pushing back against automation.

The 'driver' operates a dead man switch in a lot of cases, and that's about it. I can't recall if this train itself was an automated test bed, but a lot of BHP and Rio's rail operations are managed from the control center in Perth, and drivers are (usually :P ) aboard in case of problems.

Edit:

So it looks like even though they've had the technology going for a while, Rio only just delivered their first 'real' loaded autonomous ore train last year : https://www.riotinto.com/ourcommitment/spotlight-18130_25692...

More on the AutoHaul system: http://www.calibregroup.com/projects/project/autohaul-projec...

Apologies for the mixup

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

#40

Post by topspin »

maxxxxx wrote: post #9
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.

I wonder about that too. It seems a much simpler and constrained task than driving a car.

> It seems a much simpler and constrained task than driving a car.

It's not. Always assume that whatever limit can be exploited to maximize economic return is pursued to the maximum extent by everyone involved at nearly all times. If you do so you will be right more often than you are wrong. An occupation that is conceptually "easy" is made demanding through optimization.

Heavy freight trains that navigate hilly or mountainous terrain can rip themselves apart when they are not operated with precision. Passenger train operators can be held to schedules where deviation in either direction is measured in seconds regardless of weather, faults, mistakes, uncooperative passengers, etc.

When large amounts of capital are involved always assume that the expectations will be extraordinary and, therefore, difficult to automate.

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