With all the talk of autonomous ships people would be forgiven for imagining that it was just around the corner, but people dreaming of autonomous ships can “keep on dreaming, because it won’t happen any time soon”, according to Steffen Tunge, managing director of OSM Ship Management.
However, at the Maritime CEO Forum in Singapore, Tunge was not speaking for the entire panel. Frank Coles, head of technology firm Transas, said that automation, artificial intelligence and gamification would “take us down a path of autonomous ships pretty quickly”. He also warned that the present rate of technology would make it impossible for the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to keep up.