All this talk reminds me of 1950’s Popular Mechanics articles demonstrating how we would all be buzzing around in flying cars by the year 2000. The charade gets revived every 15 years or so when an inventor jump starts it with a new “air car”, then the story fades away before the next big news cycle.
Aviation has had the technology to fly airliners between major airports for years. The system can take off, make the flight and land the plane in zero-zero visibility with more precise control than a human pilot can under the best circumstances but cannot taxi off the runway and go to a gate. The same problem will affect ships once they arrive outside a busy port.
The kind of discussion that’s happening here came up when pilotless cockpits became possible but all that talk has been set aside at least for the time being. The public won’t accept it.
Flying drones with specific missions in uncrowded airspace is one thing and the Navy already has small seagoing autonomous vessels but if I was a young academy puke I wouldn’t lose any sleep picturing empty ship bridges and ERs.
Besides, imagine a cruise ship without a handsome captain for all the ladies of a certain age to swoon over with bovine devotion.
I suppose Hollywood casting agents could supply the cruise ship companies with suitably handsome out of work actors but all you suitably handsome out of work actors out there: don’t hold your breath.