Well, here we are. All sitting around a cosy fire and reflecting on the
HUMANE project. We invite you to join us for some storytelling about the
project, about the future at sea, about seafarers, academia, and industry.
About a rapidly changing world and a near-impossible undertaking of pre
dicting the future.
This is not about technology. It is about what we do with it, and how we
get the benefits without the downsides. It is about smart shipping. Smart is
defined by ISO TC8, and it has been decided that smart is the word to use in
relation to shipping. There is thus a clear understanding that smart is going
to be the term that we use. It basically means it is systems that appear smart
to humans or humanity. The clever reason why ISO has chosen it is that it
is introducing something which is new and developing in many dimensions.
Originally, and intrigued by the widespread conversation about “auton
omous shipping” (and now smart shipping) which had recently gathered
momentum (2018), the HUMANE project was instigated with a wish
to contribute constructively to such a future. During preparatory talks
between project members, it quickly became clear that the various visions
of increasingly autonomous maritime operations, as it was presented in the
media, at conferences, and as parts of company communications, were all
building on different sets of expectations, assumptions and preconditions,
and mostly of a varied nature. Often, these expectations were however not
very explicit, and their span was – and remains to be – very wide, ranging
from being purely of a technological capability nature to the other end of
the spectrum, where certain human skills and actions were expected in a
variety of contexts. In between, there were, and still are, underlying expec
tations for future legal aspects, training aspects, economical aspects, safety
aspects, security aspects, and maintenance aspects, to mention the major
areas in play.
In the HUMANE project, the underpinning understanding became that
these expectations, assumptions, and preconditions were crucial compo
nents in a more autonomous maritime future. Indeed, if the visions pre
sented were to become true, the fundamental assumptions were required
to become true first. In other words, such assumptions were not just to
