Sailors and Marine Oilers

58% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): Occupations with a moderate risk of automation usually involve routine tasks but still require some human judgment and interaction.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

User poll

Sentiment

The following graph is included wherever there is a substantial amount of votes to render meaningful data. These visual representations display user poll results over time, providing a significant indication of sentiment trends.

Wages

Low paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Sailors and Marine Oilers' was $48,400, or $23 per hour

'Sailors and Marine Oilers' were paid 0.7% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

Comments

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Danny (Low) 1 month ago

Id like to hope that a mariners job would be unable to be replacd by ai as too much manual thinking and experience is needed especially whilst navigating. Whilst sure the ai could do all the required calculations down to a T it lacks one thing that humans have which is experience and also just that human feel for the ship

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Jack (Highly likely) 8 months ago

I think ai will be a heavy problem for humanity because if all humans gonna be replaced by ai people will be lazy and not able to and especially the marine jobs the ocean is heavy and the risk is more

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Adam (Low) 2 years ago

Too much variability. Difficult, dynamic environment requiring human judgement and responsiveness.

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D.T. MacTavish 3 years ago

It won't be fully automated for various reasons, sailors probably won't be fully replaced within the century but automation can make their jobs easier in the meantime.

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John 4 years ago

Sailors need to be replaced by robots, they're all lazy, dumb, and poop all the time. Many sailors are also flat earthers, so I hope those idiots get replaced by robots.

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Sailordude 1 year ago

Ok first being a sailor is a difficult and can sometimes be a labor intensive job. Also I do not understand at all why you say that we are flat earthers that is just weird as there is no reason to think that and also where in the name of hell did you get that idea.
Also the poop thing is just something I would hear from a 1st grader.

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Lorenzo Bonanno (Low) 4 years ago

Sailor wages are a minimal part of the costs of the shipping industry, while insurance companies will push to maintain workers onboard vessels, especially officers, as they can be held accountable in case of accidents.

Another reason is the fact that most work on board ships is maintenance, removing workers from a ship would mean keeping a ship longer in ports for regular maintenance and cleaning of holds, which is not economically viable.

Before looking for automation of the jobs, shipping companies will look to ways to reduce their fuel costs, as it is by far the largest continuous expense.

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Faisal Ali 4 years ago

This isn't a career for robots at all. It needs to be done by humans instead. A robot will be destroyed in a battle.

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Bjørnar (Low) 4 years ago

Depending on what kind of boat you work on, but as an anchor handler I don’t think my job will be taken by robots

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Hank the Tank 4 years ago

I am a marine engineer of the watch and my oilers are pretty worthless these days. Can’t run a mop, can’t weld, can’t paint, can’t learn. No interest in learning and advancement in the career, won’t put down the smartphone long enough to take orders. Just give me PTZ cameras and a remote alarm monitoring interface and automate the job away.

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David (Low) 4 years ago

Robots will not be able to handle tasks which require a keen alertness of all of the variables involved with seafaring activities

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Kurt R (Low) 5 years ago

Robots are dumb. The ship I currently work on has miles of wires for all of the supposed automation, and yet things still break and require human hands to fix. Sure this may change in the next 20 years, but my gut tells me humans will still need to be involved to some extent. Either way, I'll be retired by then. Good luck to all of the young aspiring mariners.

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Khan 4 years ago

Ok.
Machines can already play chess or fly planes though.
Why can't they sail the nth amount of seas?

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D.T. MacTavish 3 years ago

Chess players nor pilots have been replaced. Chess at least is a sport so people want to watch other people play it, not machines (I don't think machine chess would take off on a sports channel) and at least in pilots' cases much of the plane is automated but still requires a human to operate it there are just somethings machines won't be perfect at in the meantime. Sailors will still be around as well, but much of their work might become automated but I don't see a human presence being removed from ships in the next few decades, especially not the officers.

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