[flashman]

Here's a premise for you: autonomous cargo ships, incorporated as their own entities, bidding on freight contracts and offering transport through a system not unlike an AdWords bidding auction. They circle the world constantly, offloading and picking up cargo from sail-through offshore platforms, stopping only for maintenance, and occasionally doing really strange things for reasons only their algorithms can explain.

[swatow]

When things move so slowly, there is no advantage to being autonomous. And it makes little difference economically who the owners are. Right now, ships will change their speeds based on changes in interest rates, since it is more fuel efficient to move slowly, but when interest rates go up, it is worthwhile to get the cargo to its destination quicker.

[mafribe]

That's really interesting. I know little / nothing about the economics of large scale maritime transport. Could you point me towards some reading material on this subject?

[runeks]

> Right now, ships will change their speeds based on changes in interest rates, since it is more fuel efficient to move slowly, but when interest rates go up, it is worthwhile to get the cargo to its destination quicker.

Perhaps this is the reason the Baltic Dry Index ("an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea" [1]) is at an all-time low?

http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/BALDRY/tab/2

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Dry_Index

[thret]

This idea sounds very similar to the one of driverless cars owning themselves: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30998361

[runeks]

I really don't understand how a car can own itself. Surely, whoever purchased/produced the car is its owner.

[wyager]

Throw in the ability to do complex live learning/optimization and you have a recipe for some really interesting behavior.