Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels

I believe human workers' situational awareness on ships combining Electronic Aids To Navigation and other technologies will always have a place in the maritime industry. AI may get there but surely not in the next 20 years. There is also a huge human factor in terms of passenger ship emergencies and contingencies. Will AI treat humans the same way human crew does?

Difficulties for reliable navigation and interventions in case of technical failure

Tesla robot for 25k would b a cheap replacement for boat labourers, not going to replace captains surely,?

There are some limitations to AI in regrds to replacing human that I'm not going to list here, but I could definitely see reducing number of crew responsible for navigation from a captain, 3 mates and 3 helmsmen, to a captain, a mate and a helmsmen. AI would be in charge during long sea phases while captain or mate would take control in emergencies and during transits through congested waters, narrow waterways and during berthing or unberthing.

There are times when weather conditions can change as quick as our eye blinks in my opinion robots may be able to do this but huminitic experience and skills are unbeatable.

Oceans are too vast and entire world uses them in their own possible way, the risk of loss of an unmanned vessel with their costly cargoes are too huge to leave them on robots... so this job is safe for at least a 100 year period...

It is possible to automate the industry by "tomorrow". Worldwide. Every vessel. There are technologies out there.

Why it is not happening? Mostly because of money but also the complexity of the problem.

Simple example: Average salary of a Safety Officer is 3000 USD. He is carrying out inspections and maintenance of firefighting equipment and other stuff. To automate only this process company will probably need to spend tens of thousands. Why would they if one can use this money now to scale one's business?

Besides navigation ship's crew has a lot of other critical roles. It will take a lot of scientific effort to set up new safe processes. Most marine companies don't have the necessary resources and infrastructure for that. I won't say a word about the lack of initiative and natural resistance of the industry to everything "new".

I believe computers can complete tasks much more efficiently than humans, saving a lot of money for companies. This includes costs such as food and amenities. Additionally, humans take up a lot of space on ships.

However, I also believe that there will always be some humans watching over ships at all times, whether on shore or elsewhere.

For all you who have sailed, I can't believe AI will do what is needed when there is that not often but inevitable "Oh Sh*t" moment.

If we already have unmanned aircraft and are working on unmanned vessels, (tankers, freighters, car carriers, passenger ships) then who is to say the AI wont take over maritime jobs? Soon we will probably have remote control vessels or completely auto piloted vessels and no need for a bridge crew or engine room crew!

more jobs being created from new vessels and old crew retiring than people graduating out into the industry

they cant deal with water

In a number of maritime sectors the hands on element of ship handling has already been given over to Dynamic Positioning Systems. That these systems require constant local supervision is only a question of communication and reliability. We already see automatic mining trucks, container cranes and transporters and more recently harbor tugs supervised from remote locations. Because of the financial advantage to the ship owner in not having to accommodate and pay people to operate a vessel, it is only a matter of time before we see ships are operating in the same way.