Your gadgets could soon arrive from faraway manufacturers on cargo ships that lack a captain or crew.<\/p>\n
A self-piloted ship\u00a0designed to recreate<\/a>\u00a0the Mayflower’s journey across the Atlantic 400 years ago has crossed the ocean. It’s part of a growing number of boats that use artificial intelligence (AI) to guide themselves in a trend that could make ocean shipping and transportation greener and more efficient.<\/p>\n “From a sustainability perspective, having an unmanned vessel allows for slower, more fuel-efficient routes,”\u00a0Marc Taylor<\/a>, a logistics specialist at TheoremOne, an innovation and engineering company, told Lifewire in an email interview. “The onboard AI technology can analyze real-time sea conditions to allow the engine to operate in the most efficient way.”<\/p>\n In a voyage lasting 40 days across 3,500 miles at sea, the Mayflower Autonomous Ship arrived in North America in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on June 5. On board the ship, there are 6 AI-powered cameras and more than 30 sensors, which help the AI Captain to interpret and analyze sea conditions.<\/p>\n The Mayflower, developed by IBM and its partners, is designed to adhere to maritime law while making crucial split-second decisions, like rerouting itself around hazards or marine animals, without human interaction or intervention.<\/p>\n “The AI Captain has learned from data, postulates alternative choices, assesses and optimizes decisions, manages risk, and refines its knowledge through feedback, all while maintaining the highest ethical standards\u2014which is similar to how machine learning is applied across industries like transportation, financial services, and healthcare,”\u00a0Rob High<\/a>, IBM’s chief technology officer of networking and edge computing, wrote in a blog post. “And furthermore, there’s a transparent record of the AI Captain’s decision-making process that can help us humans understand why the captain made certain decisions\u2026 transparency that is all too important in these heavily regulated industries.”<\/p>\n The Mayflower isn’t the only autonomous ship making news. An\u00a0autonomous commercial cargo ship<\/a>\u00a0recently completed a 500-mile voyage in the busy water of Tokyo Bay. The 750-gross-ton vessel was powered by Orca AI, whose software helped the ship avoid hundreds of collisions autonomously.<\/p>\n The container ship Suzaku demonstrated for the first time the use of a comprehensive, fully autonomous navigation system, for a container ship operating in a congested sea area, according to the consortium of companies that carried out the test. About 500 ships pass through Tokyo Bay each day.<\/p>\n A slower route may provide more time for the unloading of ships at ports and thus reduce idle time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “We have created fully automated navigation by designing and demonstrating completely new systems through open innovation and taking into account the perspectives of ship operators,”\u00a0Koichi Akamine<\/a>, the president of Japan Marine Science, said in the news release. “I am confident that this successful demonstration represents a major step forward toward the practical implementation of fully automated navigation.”<\/p>\n More ominously, a\u00a0Chinese company has tested<\/a>\u00a0an AI-powered uncrewed ship that could be used for military purposes. Last year, Yunzhou Tech showed off six high-speed crewless vessels designed to “quickly intercept, besiege and expel” seagoing targets.<\/p>\n The US Navy is also testing experimental crewless surface vessels. The AI-guided ships are heading to Hawaii this summer for exercises. “The implementation of unmanned systems will increase decision speed and lethality to enhance our warfighting advantage,”\u00a0Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener<\/a>\u00a0said\u00a0in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u2018Aye, Aye\u2019, AI\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n
No Crew, No Fuss<\/span><\/h2>\n