AI and tariffs will likely be the dominant influences on shipping for years to come
 To restore domestic manufacturing in the United States, long lost to more affordable Asian labour, protectionism has become the new faith sweeping the land. Less so, and to a lesser extent, it has also spread in Europe, which has suffered a similar loss of domestic manufacturing for the same reason.
Protectionist policies, such as tariffs and quotas, increase the cost of imported goods, making them less attractive to consumers, thus enhancing demand for domestic products and reducing demand for imports.
Not good news for ocean shipping, already hampered with skyrocketing regulatory costs as the West drives towards politically unsustainable "net zero" carbon goals to arrest global warming, which it does not have a hope of doing.
Coupled with shrinking popular support for green new deals of any kind is a profound distrust of unelected bureaucracies and their attempts to fan fashionable fears into flaming popular causes to winkle out more tax dollars from the public. Resistance against this has been growing in electoral support for populism and for bold actions by elected officials to reduce the size of the bureaucracy and the waste it generates.
Universities and the primary and secondary educational establishments, whose minions have been the product of teachers' colleges, have adopted a cultural Marxist mentality, also known as "critical theory", which is hostile to western culture and values. Such opinions would not matter, except they now command multi-billion dollar pension funds which invest ideologically rather than for reasons of return on investment.
In other words, they only invest in firms that have the requisite number of women on the boards and in top managerial positions, and have adopted DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) policies in appointments and ESG (environmental, social, governance) policies throughout their organisations from Disney to the US Navy. In the armed forces, women have achieved high rank when it is unlikely they could have met the basis physical standards had they enlisted in the 1970s.
There is rapidly spreading agreement that the worldwide leftist bureaucracy has triumphed in recent years. It has made the cost of licences, permissions and mandates more important than the availability of oil in the running of ships as one can no longer burn the cheapest oil available, but was compelled to use the most expensive low- or no-sulphur fuels to successfully run the slalom of objections regulators set in the way of whatever one would prefer to do. There is such a shortage of safe aviation fuel, for instance, that is unavailable in quantities to sustain the industry.
While the world may well witness a shrinkage in ocean shipping as an oversupply of tonnage becomes acute, given the wash of mega ships coming from shipyards worldwide. Further crew shrinkage from 25 to near zero if autonomous ships appear on the scene as expected.
Labour-saving devices save the cost of labourers, it is widely said. That belief might be amended to say that Labour-saving devices free workers to do other things that need to be done.
If telecommuting becomes the norm of economic life, and people work from home, or where ever they choose to be, this frees people to do more useful work. Office building can be converted to housing, effecting what some have called "urban implosion", the denuding of car-dependent suburban sprawl and the conversion of office space into residents, parks and playgrounds.
This is dreaded by freedom-loving peoples as a vision of Klaus Schwab, whose World Economic Forum (WEF) has envisioned the creation of "15 minute cities" where few will own cars, we will famously eat bugs in one version, and everything will be in walking or cycling distance from one's front door. What is frightening about this, is that its creators see it as a result of central planning and that the citizen will be a mere conscript in an army of social improvement. "Welcome to 2030: You'll own nothing and be happy," appeared in an essay on the WEF website.
But if this were not the case, and these changes came about in response to market forces, such WEF predictions would not prompt fears of Orwellian outcomes. To achieve such ends with democratic input, would require sophisticated, yet affordable, audio visual telecommunications that are responsive to our needs and readily available to all.
AI - artificial intelligence - can be viewed as a job destroyer, or a portal to discovery of new ways and doing things which result in new things to do. In the course of writing one finds AI tool Co-pilot useful in providing concrete statistics instantly so one did not have to "write around" the absence of a fact.
One must note AI has politically correct bias and gets things wrong from time to time usually by citing out-of-date information. Rather like a professor one might know who is mostly, but not entirely reliable.
But when my AI tool is asked what the state of play in autonomous transport, it says self-driving technology is making significant strides.
"Self-driving ships, also known as autonomous ships, are gradually gaining momentum in the maritime industry. These vessels are equipped with advanced sensors, GPS, and AI systems to navigate and operate without human intervention. One notable example is the 120-TEU Yara Birkeland, the world's first fully electric and autonomous containership.
"Self-driving trucks are being developed to address safety concerns, labour shortages, and operational efficiency. These trucks are particularly suited for interstate highways, where they can operate with fewer obstacles and hazards. By 2027, self-driving trucks are expected to be deployed on specific hub-to-hub routes, with broader adoption anticipated by 2030-2035. The technology aims to create safer roads, provide better truck-driving jobs, and make goods more affordable and available for everyone.
"Driverless trains are becoming more common in both urban and freight rail systems. These trains use AI-enabled cameras and machine learning algorithms to navigate and operate without human intervention. One example is the AutoHaul technology in Australia, which operates a two-kilometre-long freight train autonomously. Autonomous trains offer benefits such as improved safety, increased efficiency, and reduced environmental impact," said the AI tool.
While the prospect of such changes are frightening, as they undoubtedly were when the horse-drawn world was displaced by the motorcar. But the motorised world produced greater opportunities than before as changes today will undoubtedly bring to shipping over time.
In such times of radical change, it is good to remember what the famous historian Barbara Tuchman said: "Things are five times less worse than they are reported." |
