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Autonomous, crewless ships are in an advanced stage of development, much as autonomous, driverless road vehicles are. Autonomous ships are generally referred to as MASS (maritime autonomous surface ships), and they are expected to begin commercial operations within the next ten years. Law-making bodies are already moving to make regulations to accommodate crewless vessels of various sizes.1 From 2018 to 2021, the International Maritime Organization (IMO, an agency of the United Nations) conducted a “scoping” exercise to assess the degree to which the existing regulatory framework of international IMO legal instruments may need to be modified to make them applicable to MASS.2
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