For millennia, navigation was an act of interpretation: hand-drawn portolan charts, stars read in the night sky, currents intuited from experience passed down across generations. Today’s ship is a digital organism, sailing by fusing thousands of sensors, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems capable of perceiving their surroundings and making decisions in real time — a true evolutionary leap, from the nautical chart to the “sapiens” ship.
This panel traces this evolution of the naval species, from the earliest cartographic representations of the sea to the new generation of autonomous vessels capable of navigating, optimising routes, and even self-diagnosing without direct human intervention. The discussion will address the implications of this transformation for maritime safety, crew training, the cybersecurity of connected naval infrastructure, and the international regulatory framework — still largely designed for ships governed by human beings rather than algorithms.
The session will offer the audience a reflection on what it means for a centuries-old industry like shipping to evolve at the pace of artificial intelligence without losing its deepest identity: the ability to find one’s way through the unknown.
