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Comment by rm_-rf_slash | Hacker News Reader

First time in a while an HN headline made me laugh.

I’ve lived in the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York most of my life. I’ve sailed, done jet skis, onboard motor, offboard, name it. Loads of boating experience all around.

And yet every single time I dock it’s always a struggle to time and execute it exactly right, even with fair weather, even with someone else to jump off and tie the boat up to the dock.

Autonomous ferries are the dumbest idea I have read on this site in a long time. The complexity is light-years beyond the trials and tribulations of Tesla’s “Autopilot.” People could drown, or at least keep themselves afloat while the water ruins whatever electronics they brought aboard.

I would sooner trust an autonomous car than an autonomous ferry, and that’s after reading about those Uber/Tesla crashes.

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Have you ever tried to fly a quadcopter drone manually? It's really hard; I could barely get one to hover, after hours of practice. Yet AI quadcopters that can fly in ornate formations and execute complex maneuvers are well known [1]. Don't discount what AI can or can't do just because it's hard for humans.

Other advantages in ferries' favor; unlike most streets, the docks for autonomous ferries could be designed around the AI's capabilities. Also, ferries don't travel at 70 MPH. :)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4 (6-year-old video!)

Things not in ferries' favor: wind, water currents, depth, other shipping which is often not very maneuverable and yet moving fast, no lanes, complex rules about giving way to other boats, and no ability to fail safe (just turning everything off is dangerous, possibly deadly).

Ferries crash real good, too (read to the end, about the second crash):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Staten_Island_Ferry_crash

Did the ferry's crash because they were autonomous?

No quite the opposite. Human error.

Hello from Boston! Come see how gridlocked all modes of transportation are during the day and suddenly this idea will shift from the "that's impossible" category to "how can we make this possible" category. We're considering gondolas for public transit, for example. All options should be on the table.

I think that Autonomous ferries are a better idea than Autonomous Tractor-Trailer trucks going down the crowded freeway.

For machine vision the fact that there are few obstructions on the water make this a killer testbed. Have you seen the quality of detail on marine charts?

I work in a shipyard and understand docking is difficult. It is an easy engineering challenge though. If we can do it on the space station then it is achievable on the nations waterways.

“Some cities” isn’t “every city”, and this article isn’t talking about ferries or about big harbors. I can see this having more advantages in a medieval city with narrow streeets than in a city designed for cars.

I imagine that leaving the mooring to human operators (either those waiting to (un)load the ship or remotely) also could be an option.

More importantly, we’re talking research. This need not lead to a economically viable product in decades.

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