
AI Is About To Take The Ship's Helm Away From Humans - howrude
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2019/01/14/ai-is-about-to-take-the-ships-helm-away-from-humans/
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akira2501
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 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?

~~~
ehnto
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.

~~~
toomanybeersies
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.

~~~
wefarrell
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.

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philwelch
> 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.

Hopefully the helm and navigation controls are governed by a secure, air-
gapped connection; otherwise someone could hijack the signal and commandeer
the ship remotely, and that would be the first case of _actual_ internet
piracy.

~~~
tirpen
There has been experiments with GPS successful Spoofing attacks against ships,
so even if it is airgapped, it's not 100% safe.

[https://insidegnss.com/gps-spoofing-experiment-knocks-
ship-o...](https://insidegnss.com/gps-spoofing-experiment-knocks-ship-off-
course/)

~~~
philwelch
Sure, but then they wouldn't be _internet_ pirates, they would just be
electronic pirates.

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dwighttk
“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.”

~~~
DamnYuppie
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.

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masonic
Hey, what could go wrong?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Computer)

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yason
I could see a potential with completely autonomous vessels that could sail for
weeks/months on solar/wind power without any human presence. Crew would only
board the ship when approaching a harbour, and steer her to the dock.

Solar panels and wind turbines could generate electricity which would be
stored in batteries and then used to drive electric motors propelling the
ship. Slower than diesel but also cheaper and with less moving parts.

~~~
runeks
> Solar panels and wind turbines could generate electricity which would be
> stored in batteries and then used to drive electric motors propelling the
> ship.

I wonder what the efficiency of a wind turbine + engine would be compared to a
sail.

Ie. if the wind blows so a ship with a sail moves at 20 mph, how fast could
the wind turbine + engine move it?

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m0zg
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.

~~~
jcranmer
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yja2VmZOfdA)
shows you how some trains deal with snow).

In general, the costs of upgrading track to be able to support autonomous
driving aren't worth the savings you get from eliminating driver. The main
counterexception to this is Western Australia, where everything of value is
1,000 miles away from where anybody lives (and is transported by trains to the
coasts for export), and so railroads face tremendous costs actually getting
their drivers to their trains. Unsurprisingly, the mining companies in
Australia who own/run their own railroads have invested heavily in autonomous
trains.

~~~
samplatt
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.

~~~
yukonbound
The financial incentive for these mining companies are huge though, as a
driver can earn A$120k before even considering the total cost of employment
for a remote FIFO site.

Mine site are open cast, mine large tonnage and have long mine lives
justifying the large initial investment.

Australian mining operations are also very dry, which helps a lot. Rain
introduces a lot of variables.

Large scale automation is particular to the Australian mining industry at this
point.

South African deep level gold mines have been working on this for many years
with little success, and I think they have mostly given up.

~~~
samplatt
The dry conditions help the automated vehicles, but there's special challenges
when it DOES actually rain.... everything tends to be underwater, by a lot :-)

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blauditore
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.

~~~
Slartie
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.

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itslennysfault
Remember the movie Hackers when the DiVinci virus capsized those ships?

