Good morning children – and guest cruise ship students. Now sit up and pay close attention for I wish to set you a poser for the weekend:

Have we reached the stage when cruise ships can start to think for themselves?

Back in the 17th century, most people had never even considered the question: What is the meaning of life?

And, no, you chattering fidget at the back..Jonathan Smith-Jones… they wouldn’t have got the idea from that Monty Python film because that was made hundreds of years later. Which reminds me, Smith-Jones – you got a D in last week’s History exam so please stay and see me after class.

Now back to the question which wasn’t on everybody’s lips hundreds of years ago… this didn’t stop the French philosopher René Descartes contemplating the problem and coming up with the answer that has since been a cornerstone of modern philosophy:

I think, therefore I am

While you’re pondering all of this, let me bring you up to date:

This may look like a photograph of a standard rubbish bin and if you threw an aluminium can into it, nothing would happen.

Try dumping that plastic bottle into it – the one you have been surreptitiously sipping from, Smith-Jones – and this bin will throw it back out at you, for it has recognised the plastic bottle as the wrong kind of rubbish.

In the same way that you, Smith-Jones, are obviously the wrong kind of student.

This ‘smart trash can’ was part of the ‘Toward the Sentient City’ exhibition held in New York last week – a ground-breaking exhibition which explored how our lives could change when we can embed computers in anything and everything – for some of us, a chilling prospect.

Now, as some of us know – apparently not you, Smith-Jones, for you are clearly not listening – 21st century cruise ships are filled with modern technology and communications.

At some point soon, it is possible that a cruise ship may become truly aware or, as we like to say, sentient.

And, yes, Miss Harker, I doubt this is something that will ever happen to Smith-Jones…

So if a cruise ship was conscious of the world around it and its passengers what choices could it make?

1. Not to set sail until the passengers had paid for the trip.
2. Change course if it felt threatened by poor weather conditions.
3. Adjust its breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper menus after evaluating what its passengers actually ordered.
4. Adjust its air conditioning and heating.
5. Send an SOS message, alert passengers and launch lifeboats, if necessary.
6. Set up a better queuing system for embarking and disembarking passengers.
7. Automatically tally the extras on passengers’ bills.
8. It could throw Smith-Jones overboard! Especially if he doesn’t stop whispering, pulling girl’s hair and drinking in my class!
9. Last but not least, design the next generation of cruise ships. Ideally one that would not allow young idiots on board.

Homework

I’d like your response in 50 words or less. Also, please search the internet and tell me which of the above items are ALREADY being used by today’s cruise ships.

Please let me have it back Monday morning, 9am sharp.

Smith-Jones! Stop whatever disgusting thing you are doing and report to the head teacher!!

James Leavey

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