A Hacker's delight

[#1]

A note on the BBC news site about "Self Navigating" cargo ships. Apparently the "captain" would be in an office somewhere on dry land, while the ship decides the best route. Just imagine the fun that hackers could have once the hacked in an took control of the vessel. Perhaps British Airways, with their well known computer skills could branch out into this line of business?

[#2]

Pilotless passenger planes have been on the drawing board, and trialled, for a few years back now ! !

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130502-pilotless-planes-plan-to-take-off  ( dated 2013 on google search)

and again... two days ago.. Boeing announces

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/08/boeing-studies-pilotless-planes-as-it-ponders-next-jetliner.html

[#3]

Boeing and NASA used a remote controlled aircraft (720 I think) that they intentionally crashed to study the effects of said crash way back in 1984. And of course we've had drones (or UAVs) since the late 60s and early 70s. The technology has existed for long enough and is good enough that it is more than capable of flying passenger airliners. Most modern airliners have some form of autopilot, with human pilots only really being required for take off and landing and monitoring weather systems and adjusting flight paths for that.

The real thing preventing them rolling it out already is how much a human life costs and does the company make enough of a profit to fork out the cost of a few hundred people crashing into the side of a mountain if a programmer they outsourced to some third world country screws up an if statement in the operating system, and could their reputation survive it.

At least when a human pilot does it he won't be a problem any more for the company because he's dead and they won't have to ground and upgrade their entire fleet while they wait for a software patch.

[#4]

It may be a Hacker’s delight and is equally a pirates delight too. Eventually with no crew on board there is no way for them to prevent anyone boarding the vessel when it’s out at sea. They would have to ensure that the piloting system couldn’t be manually overridden so they can then steer the vessel and 'new' crew to port. But that doesn’t stop the pirates dumping valuable cargo a sea, to steal it or simply out of malice when they realise what it happening, assuming of course they don't incapacitate the vessel after boarding which would be the obvious thing to do.

[#5]

I think you will find most modern jets are capable of take off and landing without human intervention !

and are there just to take over in problem situations .

But to totally remove the human factor , The cause of several plane crashes is not a good idea .

The passengers would be unlikely to board on a pilotless plane .

Ai has come a long way over the last few years , but are a long way away from building a reliable autonomous pilot or a ships captain , and are still struggling to get the cars ready

[#6]

"This is the Captain speaking. Welcome to the 8:00 am London to New York flight. The weather in New York is forecast to be  good, with no rain and a balmy 24 degrees Celsius; just like it is here in Mumbai."

[#7]

Not sure where this is from but:

The ideal flight crew is a pilot and a dog. The pilot is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.

[#8]

@Mook

I would imagine they could make the ship almost impregnable and something along the lines of a huge floating container. As for being one of five hundred or so passengers on a fully automated aircraft without a pilot to take over in an emergency..... besides, who is going to serve those wonderful warmed up aircraft meals?  

[#9]

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@Minivanman wrote:

I would imagine they could make the ship almost impregnable and something along the lines of a huge floating container.

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Maybe they could but doing that would only complicate the unloading process, but it still wouldn't stop them holding it to ransom. The design needs to be bog standard so it can sail to any port in the world and be unloaded / loaded using the existing technology.

[#10]

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@Mook wrote:

It may be a Hacker’s delight and is equally a pirates delight too.

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/me considers coming out of retirement, dragging the old sea chest out of the attic, loading the dinghy up with shaped charges and raising the black!

Arrr... pass the Rum!

[#11]

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@Minivanman wrote:

As for being one of five hundred or so passengers on a fully automated aircraft without a pilot to take over in an emergency..... besides, who is going to serve those wonderful warmed up aircraft meals?  

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In all my flying experience I have never been served by a pilot