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If we’re talking practical, you’d always need people on board to deal with mechanical breakdown or emergencies. And you’d need all the support systems and suppl

If we’re talking practical, you’d always need people on board to deal with mechanical breakdown or emergencies. And you’d need all the support systems and supplies need for them. After factoring that in, how large is the bridge crew on a container ship? Also, pirates would become a problem because taking over a ship without a crew would easier and way less risk.

xattt 5y ago
The argument for easier piracy assumes that a self-driving ship would have a standard "people accessible" format. There's no reason for packaging of the vessel to remain the same. Consider patrol drones. They look nothing like something an individual can get into.
- salawat 5y ago
  This was already addressed. Most of it would still have to be human accessible for maintenance/emergency purposes. If you're going to have to potentially service the thing underway, there is no point redoing the packaging. Besides which, an automated ship is about a trio of tugs, a computer replacement, and a buncha fuel away from anywhere.
  - Retric 5y ago
    In terms of maintenance you can put the access below the cargo which significantly increases what it takes to hijack a ship. However for hijacking’s the simplest approach is to simply scuttle the ship remotely. If they get nothing then it’s rather hard to get people to hijack the next ship.
    - kayodelycaon 5y ago
      > scuttle the ship You mean deliberately sink a $10 million ship, causing a massive environmental disaster. Not to mention being a hazard to other shipping if the water is shallow enough or the ship breaks apart. Do you blow up a grocery store because someone attempts to steal a jar of pickles?
      - Retric 5y ago
        Ships sink all the time, unless it’s an oil tanker they really aren’t an environmental disaster. As to cost, if someone’s hijacking a ship you already lost the ship now it’s just an insurance question. The question for an insurance company isn’t just about this ship, but the cost of paying out future hijackings. On top of this there is the rather more interesting option of refloating the ship.
        salawat 5y ago
        ...so you just hand out an instant logistical DDoS button to any sufficiently motivated group? What also makes you think insurance is going to pay out for you sinking your own ship. Moral hazard much?
        Retric 5y ago
        Every rocket launch a range safety officer (RSO) keeps track of the trajectory and is ready to hit the self destruct button if needed. Insurance pays out if you hit it as that’s been agreed to ahead of time, the same would apply here or you wouldn’t sink the ship. As to DDoS, sinking isn’t any more of a risk than someone taking over control of your self driving boat and aiming it at the coastline. From a pure safety standpoint you need some method of remotely disabling the ship.
        salawat 5y ago
        A rocket launch is generally done much less frequently, premiums to insure would be through the roof due to the smaller risk pool, and don't involve cargo lots measured in the thousands of TEU.
        Retric 5y ago
        The value of a single rockets cargo can easily be worth more than a container ships cargo. The average TEU at Port of Los Angeles is worth ~43k USD and the words largest container ship is only 24k TEU, that’s up to 1 Billion in 2021 USD and plenty of satellites have been worth more than that. The ships can be worth quite a bit when new, but their also depreciating assets with only a few percent of that in scrap value. Only using the least valuable ships in areas that can be pirates seems like an obvious optimization.
marcosdumay 5y ago
You need to improve reliability and have a mobile crew you can dispatch on an emergency. Most mechanical engines do not need a maintenance crew on-site all the time, including the much larger and more complex electricity generators and the disaster-prone airplanes. About pirates, no, they work will become much harder if you don't have anybody they can point a gun to and tell to stop the ship.

xattt 5y ago

The argument for easier piracy assumes that a self-driving ship would have a standard "people accessible" format. There's no reason for packaging of the vessel to remain the same. Consider patrol drones. They look nothing like something an individual can get into.

salawat 5y ago
This was already addressed. Most of it would still have to be human accessible for maintenance/emergency purposes. If you're going to have to potentially service the thing underway, there is no point redoing the packaging. Besides which, an automated ship is about a trio of tugs, a computer replacement, and a buncha fuel away from anywhere.
- Retric 5y ago
  In terms of maintenance you can put the access below the cargo which significantly increases what it takes to hijack a ship. However for hijacking’s the simplest approach is to simply scuttle the ship remotely. If they get nothing then it’s rather hard to get people to hijack the next ship.
  - kayodelycaon 5y ago
    > scuttle the ship You mean deliberately sink a $10 million ship, causing a massive environmental disaster. Not to mention being a hazard to other shipping if the water is shallow enough or the ship breaks apart. Do you blow up a grocery store because someone attempts to steal a jar of pickles?
    - Retric 5y ago
      Ships sink all the time, unless it’s an oil tanker they really aren’t an environmental disaster. As to cost, if someone’s hijacking a ship you already lost the ship now it’s just an insurance question. The question for an insurance company isn’t just about this ship, but the cost of paying out future hijackings. On top of this there is the rather more interesting option of refloating the ship.
      - salawat 5y ago
        ...so you just hand out an instant logistical DDoS button to any sufficiently motivated group? What also makes you think insurance is going to pay out for you sinking your own ship. Moral hazard much?
        Retric 5y ago
        Every rocket launch a range safety officer (RSO) keeps track of the trajectory and is ready to hit the self destruct button if needed. Insurance pays out if you hit it as that’s been agreed to ahead of time, the same would apply here or you wouldn’t sink the ship. As to DDoS, sinking isn’t any more of a risk than someone taking over control of your self driving boat and aiming it at the coastline. From a pure safety standpoint you need some method of remotely disabling the ship.
        salawat 5y ago
        A rocket launch is generally done much less frequently, premiums to insure would be through the roof due to the smaller risk pool, and don't involve cargo lots measured in the thousands of TEU.
        Retric 5y ago
        The value of a single rockets cargo can easily be worth more than a container ships cargo. The average TEU at Port of Los Angeles is worth ~43k USD and the words largest container ship is only 24k TEU, that’s up to 1 Billion in 2021 USD and plenty of satellites have been worth more than that. The ships can be worth quite a bit when new, but their also depreciating assets with only a few percent of that in scrap value. Only using the least valuable ships in areas that can be pirates seems like an obvious optimization.

marcosdumay 5y ago

You need to improve reliability and have a mobile crew you can dispatch on an emergency. Most mechanical engines do not need a maintenance crew on-site all the time, including the much larger and more complex electricity generators and the disaster-prone airplanes. About pirates, no, they work will become much harder if you don't have anybody they can point a gun to and tell to stop the ship.