Posted on 06/26/2016 7:19:43 PM PDT by dangerdoc
Rolls-Royce isn't limiting its robotic transportation plans to luxury cars. The British transportation firm has outlined a strategy for deploying remote-controlled and autonomous cargo vessels. It's working on virtual decks where land-based crews could control every aspect of a ship, complete with VR camera views and monitoring drones to spot issues that no human ever could. Accordingly, Rolls is designing boats where humans wouldn't have to come aboard. In theory, one human would steer several boats -- crew shortages would disappear overnight.
The move to crew-free ships promises more than a few advantages, Rolls says. You wouldn't need a bridge or living quarters, so you'd have much more room for the goods you're hauling. They'd be safer and more efficient, too, since you'd cut out many human errors (not to mention the direct risks from rough weather and pirates) and streamline operations. Robotic ships might cut the number of available jobs, but they would let distant crews handle more complex tasks without being overwhelmed.
Some of Rolls' concepts are more Star Trek than real life at the moment (its imagery includes interactive holograms), but this isn't just a theoretical exercise. One ship, the Stril Luna, already has a smart Unified Bridge system in place for coordinating all its equipment. The aim is to launch the first remote-controlled cargo ships by 2020, and to have autonomous boats on the water within two decades. All told, civilians might only have to head out to sea for pleasure cruises.
Help will arrive eventually?
How about expending the money necessary to recruit and train necessary crews? In the long run it would likely be less expensive than needing to be constantly paying robotics maintenance/repair crews on top of all the rest of needed engineering maintenance that's likely to be unavoidable thus ongoing, regardless if bridge crews can be reduced to near elimination.
We could all become “Master Manipulators”.
(THX-1138)
Silent Running
I envision terrorist hackers crashing these ships into things or blowing them up or hijacking them to other places.
Someday all jobs will probably be done by automation or robots. What then? What will people do to make a living? If the world economy is going this way, what will people do to earn the money to buy the goods made by automation? Automated goods so cheap to make they are free? Guaranteed income for all? Something will have to change.
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This will happen, and it will happen relatively quickly when it does. When it happens there will be a huge change in societies. With no labor for the masses all there will be is welfare. Only land owners will be getting ahead. Eventually robots will take over repair functions. The government will get bigger and bigger.
The pirates will have a field day!
And no one will retrain a pirate these days ...... sad.
Go here to watch ships crashing into one another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVn9qANtC6g
Maybe in the future people’s jobs will be to use those products that are produced through total automation. Since their job is to test and consume the products, they would be paid for it.
When the Coast Guard went to automated engine rooms on ice breakers to save money on crewing they traded in watch standers for electronics technicians to keep all the sensors and computers going. Not much of a net gain. OTOH, machinery is getting much more reliable. But then, when does the pilot come on board for the trip up the channel to the dock? Pilots union and merchant mariners unions are pretty well protected by congress.
Walt Disney's had those since the Sixties. :-)
I hear the Somalis are working on that.
You know, Somalia is a Titan of high tech engineering.
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