AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
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Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#2[deleted]
Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#3“However, autonomy will play out very differently on the water than on land, and in many cases it won’t take humans off the ship—or entirely away from the controls.
...
In the near term, it’s more likely that the helm will be controlled by an autonomous system or a remote human operator while a smaller crew takes care of the vessel.”
Lots of different things rattling around in the ol’ promise of “autonomy.”
Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#4“However, autonomy will play out very differently on the water than on land, and in many cases it won’t take humans off the ship—or entirely away from the controls. ... In the near term, it’s more likely that the helm will be controlled by an autonomous system or a remote human operator while a smaller crew takes care of the vessel.” Lots of different things rattling around in the ol’ promise of “autonomy.”
I don't foresee this changing anything for ships. All modern vessels, both commercial and for pleasure, have auto pilots and they are used extensively.
The primary job of a captain isn't to drive the vessel, it is to basically be a project manager ensuring that the vessel is running smoothly. This includes everything from crew schedules, maintenance schedules, supplies for the vessel, quality control of procedures, and on and on. The actual piloting is a very small part of what they do.
Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#5Several 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 dedicated to shipping. The two other major types of ships, tugs and passenger ships make up most of the rest and neither of these are exactly suited to this technology.
3) Over 50% of the ships in use right now are more than 15 years old. Yea, a new one is _only_ $200 million, but that washes over the real economic picture of ship ownership and maintenance and the likely market for this product.
4) Most ships are not giant Maersk style super-container ships, so staffing reductions aren't likely to be a huge win here, if at all. Ships already run with the _minimum_ crew necessary, usually determined by already established maritime laws and agreements.
5) Microphones and pictures are nice, but ships have actual radar; why not just use that and skip all the fancy "sensor fusion" and off-brand retrofitting?
Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#6Remember the movie Hackers when the DiVinci virus capsized those ships?
Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#7Several 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.
Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#8Can 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.
Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#9Can 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.
Re: AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans
#10Can 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.
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