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Like trains, autonomous ships fundamentally doesn’t seem to make any sense. What’s the upside? Having a crew of 19 instead of 22?
by Waterluvian 3y ago
Like trains, autonomous ships fundamentally doesn’t seem to make any sense. What’s the upside? Having a crew of 19 instead of 22?
- ghaff 3y agoContainer ships already have tiny crews relative to the amount of goods they transport. The systems are already highly automated and you need some level of crew anyway for unexpected events, maintenance, etc. The idea that "automation" is this magical thing when the labor component is already pretty small is just silly.
- cesarb 3y ago> Like trains, autonomous ships fundamentally doesn’t seem to make any sense. Autonomous trains already exist, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_driverless_train_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_driverless_train_syste... for a long list of places where it's been implemented. The related article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation#Advantages_of_GoA3+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation#Adva... has a list with six advantages of autonomous trains. Many of these advantages would probably also apply to autonomous ships (and other kinds of vehicles).
- ghaff 3y agoIn spite of the intro, those seem to pretty much be all people-mover/metro systems. They're not long distance transport in potentially unpredictable conditions.
- GauntletWizard 3y agoAnd none of them are without support crew; The crew just doesn't need to ride on the train itself, but rather waits in stations or in depots along the tracks.
- ghaff 3y agoRight. You don't always need to have a driver potentially doing nothing 99% of the time. But you probably have remote and station staff a lot of the time.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoI’m not sure why container ships couldn’t be piloted remote if drones are. It’s just that it is cheap to hire a bunch of sailors from the Philippines so automation isn’t really necessary.
- ghaff 3y agoYou probably want at least some on-site supervision. And most of your sailors are probably cheap anyway.
- pfisch 3y agocheap suicide drone ships full of explosives...
- Muromec 3y agoThat’s already a thing since the previous year
- Waterluvian 3y agoOkay if we’re talking boats, not ships, a ton of things change.
- 48864w6ui 3y agoHow about cheap drone ships (with suitable propulsion) just shouldering DDGs?
- kcb 3y agoSounds like a Torpedo.
- renewiltord 3y agoFully autonomous ships are pointless. But automation improvements across the US fleet while retaining reliability are a significant factor behind America's dominance of the seas.