Drone Ocean Freighters?

Ocean freight is already a dirt cheap way to move things...  what if we cut operating expenses almost in half... by getting rid of the crews?

The computers would also be constantly analyzing operations data to improve efficiency and save money, he said. Cameras and sensors can already detect obstacles in the water better than the human eye.

Now, it only takes a crew of about 12 people to man 3000 TEU ship 24/7/365, so we are not talking about a lot of job loss, and these ships will still need to be "conducted" worldwide.  We would have is remote pilots manning ships carrying cargo.  As the article notes, piracy would rather disappear, since there would be no one to point a gun at, so security on ships would be unnecessary too.

The savings would be tremendous, and no doubt encourage us to lower costs on airlines (face it, the airline pilots today are simply hostages to safety, no one can actually fly these new jets) and then we can get to automobile travel, mag lev.

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