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This is what an undisrupted industry sounds like. You hear it from train driver unions, banks, and doctors. There is merit in what they say about safety, but t

by shubb 13y ago

This is what an undisrupted industry sounds like. You hear it from train driver unions, banks, and doctors. There is merit in what they say about safety, but they see it not as a set of problems that might be overcome, but as a way of shutting down the conversation. They don't want to think about how easily a significant part of what they do could be automated or eliminated. The heuristic is not that they object, it is that they don't want to discuss, even as speculation. It's interesting that one place these objections haven't come up is air travel. Because if you think about it, air travel should be a place we fear to automated, but we already did it. Autopilot sort of sneaked in before people realized what automation was, and pilots are comfortable that they still have a place alongside the machines, so they are happy to talk, and explain as slowly as necessary that automated landing might be a good idea one day, but automating a crash landing wouldn't work out well. The way this usually seems to work out is, everyone says it's impossible, until someone does it, and eats the other players alive. The most interesting thing here is that the insurers are the barrier. When drone designs are up and running, there will be a niche for an insurer that will take the risk, and in these days of crowd funding, you wouldn't need to be an entrenched player to take it.

Houshalter 13y ago
It's not just the insurers but regulations. Although I wonder how much they can skirt around that, for example hiring a bunch of low wage unskilled workers to just sit on the ship doing nothing so it counts as "manned". Perhaps you could have the ship be remote controlled rather than completely autonomous. When something unexpected happened, a person takes over remotely, but otherwise it acts like autopilot. Perhaps the boats could transfer cargo to and from manned boats in international waters to get around local regulations, or even just bring people on board the ship.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  If they get a single insurer and a single tiny maritime nation onboard, then they can do everything easily. "Flags of convenience" work just fine for circumventing inconveniences.
dalke 13y ago
The shipping industry has been disrupted many times. Two of the more recent ones are the transformation to containerized shipping, and the switch to slow steaming. The Maersk's Triple E class ships, for example, are less powerful than the previous generation of ships. The next disruption is likely the New Panamax will allow ships with up to 13,000 TEU through the Panama Canal, rather than the old limit of about 5,000. This disruption, and the creation of the Panama and Suez canals, are counter-examples to your idea that people "don't want to discuss, even as speculation" disruptive ideas. Some don't - the British didn't want the competition to their India trade - but certainly many, including Napolean, wanted a Suez canal. > The heuristic is not that they object, it is that they don't want to discuss, even as speculation. What if I proposed a nuclear powered aircraft. There are obvious advantages, like unlimited range. Airports wouldn't need the fueling infrastructure, so flights to, say, Easter Island wouldn't have to also pay to get the jet fuel there for the return flight. Ground crew could smoke. It would be highly disruptive, yes? Of course, there will be people who dismiss it right away. "The reactor and shielding will be too heavy", "there's too much risk in case of accident", "the R&D costs are too high", and so on. Most don't even want to discuss what nuclear powered air travel could do, even as speculation. Each one could shut down the conversation. By your heuristic, airplane power production is an undisrupted industry. While the reality is that those objections are absolutely true, and are some of the reasons why we don't have atomic aircraft. This means your heuristic is wrong, or at least incomplete. Some ideas are disruptive .. but either physically impossible or economically nonviable. How do you judge if this ides isn't in one of those two categories? You presume that drone designs will be up and running at some point. What if that point is 100 years in the future? Why should people now be concerned with it?

by shubb 13y ago

Houshalter 13y ago

It's not just the insurers but regulations. Although I wonder how much they can skirt around that, for example hiring a bunch of low wage unskilled workers to just sit on the ship doing nothing so it counts as "manned". Perhaps you could have the ship be remote controlled rather than completely autonomous. When something unexpected happened, a person takes over remotely, but otherwise it acts like autopilot. Perhaps the boats could transfer cargo to and from manned boats in international waters to get around local regulations, or even just bring people on board the ship.

PeterisP 13y ago
If they get a single insurer and a single tiny maritime nation onboard, then they can do everything easily. "Flags of convenience" work just fine for circumventing inconveniences.

dalke 13y ago

The shipping industry has been disrupted many times. Two of the more recent ones are the transformation to containerized shipping, and the switch to slow steaming. The Maersk's Triple E class ships, for example, are less powerful than the previous generation of ships. The next disruption is likely the New Panamax will allow ships with up to 13,000 TEU through the Panama Canal, rather than the old limit of about 5,000. This disruption, and the creation of the Panama and Suez canals, are counter-examples to your idea that people "don't want to discuss, even as speculation" disruptive ideas. Some don't - the British didn't want the competition to their India trade - but certainly many, including Napolean, wanted a Suez canal. > The heuristic is not that they object, it is that they don't want to discuss, even as speculation. What if I proposed a nuclear powered aircraft. There are obvious advantages, like unlimited range. Airports wouldn't need the fueling infrastructure, so flights to, say, Easter Island wouldn't have to also pay to get the jet fuel there for the return flight. Ground crew could smoke. It would be highly disruptive, yes? Of course, there will be people who dismiss it right away. "The reactor and shielding will be too heavy", "there's too much risk in case of accident", "the R&D costs are too high", and so on. Most don't even want to discuss what nuclear powered air travel could do, even as speculation. Each one could shut down the conversation. By your heuristic, airplane power production is an undisrupted industry. While the reality is that those objections are absolutely true, and are some of the reasons why we don't have atomic aircraft. This means your heuristic is wrong, or at least incomplete. Some ideas are disruptive .. but either physically impossible or economically nonviable. How do you judge if this ides isn't in one of those two categories? You presume that drone designs will be up and running at some point. What if that point is 100 years in the future? Why should people now be concerned with it?