The fishing industry is in dire straits because too many boats are chasing too few fish. Boats have been getting bigger hauls for decades, partly because the power block allows small crews to shoot more gear, but mainly because of better data.
The bridge of a modern trawler looks like that of the starship enterprise. A captain spends most of his trip looking at computer displays, reading sonar data. A skipper lives or dies on his ability to find fish, by combining his knowledge of fish behaviour, tides and currents with his sonar data.
It's for this reason that the fishing industry is consolidating into fewer, more sophisticated boats. The Annelies Ilena is currently the biggest trawler in the world at 144m LOA and 11500 tons displacement. It is capable of processing 350 tons of fish a day. Boats of this size are only economically viable because better data methods allow them to reliably find fish.
> Maritime pilots
Largely replaced by computers. In most modern ports, pilotage is only necessary for the biggest boats and the most difficult conditions. Higher-resolution charts and differential GPS obviate much of the need for the local knowledge of pilots. Computerisation has hugely reduced the crews of merchant ships. Some of the biggest vessels in the world operate on a crew of less than twenty.
>Airline pilots
The US armed forces now have more drone operators than pilots. Those are being replaced by software as fast as ethics will allow. I'd be astonished if there's a single fixed-wing pilot left in the military in 20 years time.
Civilian aviation should have abandoned human crew years ago. For every Miracle on the Hudson, there are a dozen accidents that no computer would have allowed to happen. Computers are just better at flying than people.
Ultimately, this isn't about "software" as we see it today, it's about artificial intelligence. We need to get our heads around the idea that within a few decades, computers will be more intelligent than us. Unless we understand the implications of that fact, we're doomed.
The fishing industry is in dire straits because too many boats are chasing too few fish. Boats have been getting bigger hauls for decades, partly because the power block allows small crews to shoot more gear, but mainly because of better data.
The bridge of a modern trawler looks like that of the starship enterprise. A captain spends most of his trip looking at computer displays, reading sonar data. A skipper lives or dies on his ability to find fish, by combining his knowledge of fish behaviour, tides and currents with his sonar data.
It's for this reason that the fishing industry is consolidating into fewer, more sophisticated boats. The Annelies Ilena is currently the biggest trawler in the world at 144m LOA and 11500 tons displacement. It is capable of processing 350 tons of fish a day. Boats of this size are only economically viable because better data methods allow them to reliably find fish.
> Maritime pilots
Largely replaced by computers. In most modern ports, pilotage is only necessary for the biggest boats and the most difficult conditions. Higher-resolution charts and differential GPS obviate much of the need for the local knowledge of pilots. Computerisation has hugely reduced the crews of merchant ships. Some of the biggest vessels in the world operate on a crew of less than twenty.
>Airline pilots
The US armed forces now have more drone operators than pilots. Those are being replaced by software as fast as ethics will allow. I'd be astonished if there's a single fixed-wing pilot left in the military in 20 years time.
Civilian aviation should have abandoned human crew years ago. For every Miracle on the Hudson, there are a dozen accidents that no computer would have allowed to happen. Computers are just better at flying than people.
Ultimately, this isn't about "software" as we see it today, it's about artificial intelligence. We need to get our heads around the idea that within a few decades, computers will be more intelligent than us. Unless we understand the implications of that fact, we're doomed.