Maritime is in the midst of a technological revolution. From digitalisation, AI, robotics and autonomous systems, innovation is reshaping how vessels operate. Joanne Waters, Legal Director & Smart Shipping Lead at international law firm DAC Beachcroft, has been following shipping’s digital transformation throughout her career and is one of the individuals at the forefront of untangling the complex web of legal question marks over autonomous shipping.
The Dangers Of Partial-Autonomy
For an industry pursuing innovation with the aim of reducing casualties caused by human error, the logical first step is to install systems that transfer decision-making from humans to machines, based on the assumption that machines are less fallible.
However, in reality, mixing humans and machines can actually be more of a risk rather than a mitigation if not properly managed. Joanne explained, “With an autonomous system that just supports human decision-making, the division between the roles and responsibilities of the machine and the crew is clear.
Things get much messier when the machine takes on more decision-making control and humans are relegated to a supervisory role. How do you ensure the human overseer keeps their attention on the system? How do we set practical, clear parameters for when or whether the human crew intervenes or not? How do you ensure change of control between machine and humans is executed properly and promptly? Could a failure to intervene be just as culpable as poor intervention?”
The Regulatory Minefield Accountability isn’t the only regulatory challenge in autonomous shipping. Unlike autonomous cars, which typically operate within a single jurisdiction, vessels travel internationally and require global infrastructure to support this. That global footprint makes regulating autonomy as much a political issue as a technical one.
“Overlapping jurisdictions is a well‑known problem. A Remote Operating Center must be under the effective control of the flag state. But if it’s hosted in a third state, then that third state also must exercise control over it for the laws that apply domestically… I think this ROC issue is going to be something that’s going to take a lot more discussion.”
In the absence of universal and complete regulations or legislation, Joanne recommends individual operators look to fill regulatory gaps through private law: “Review your contracts – the regulations when they come will likely not address key issues such as liability, so you need to ensure responsibility is allocated clearly in your contracts.”
How Do We Train Instinct?
Although AI and autonomous systems continuously evolve as they are given access to more data, these systems will always lack physical experience at sea. Where seafarers develop their own intuition and ‘gut feel’ through years of experience at the helm, an autonomous system only has data inputs to draw upon. Joanne questions whether this judgment can ever be coded into an algorithm.
“How do you give [autonomous systems] enough data so that it can make what is effectively… a gut instinct decision? How do you encode professional judgment and gut instinct, particularly in response to emergency situations?”
Where To Start?
For organisations that are excited to explore autonomous technology, Joanne’s advice is to get the basics right first to set up for success before making any investments. Shipowners should go beyond the IMO cyber risk management baseline and treat cyber risk as a priority across operations, while also putting strong data governance in place.
“To future-proof your business to ensure it is ready for autonomy, it’s essential to get strong data foundations in place. Once you’ve got good data governance, once you understand your data pipelines, once you understand data use rights, you are well-placed to build on that foundation by adding autonomous systems to make use of all that data.” And finally, be part of the solution.
Contribute to building trust in autonomy through participation in regulatory sandboxes and testbeds and by sharing pilot results rather than keeping them siloed. “We’re looking at something entirely different to what we know now… It’s going to take a while for the regulations to catch up.” Greater transparency around ongoing research, pilot projects and product testing against internationally recognised assurance standards could accelerate regulatory clarity and industry confidence.
Source : The digital Ship
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