Roger Horner is the founder and Group Managing Director of e3 Systems, and he’s our in-house expert on all things to do with superyacht tech here at The Islander. Each issue, Roger shares news, reviews, and insight from the technology sector.
An update from e3 Systems
Midsummer is always a great time for celebrations, and here at e3 Systems we were delighted to welcome Stuart Castell as our new Commercial Director, but sad to say goodbye to Mat Cros, who is returning to France after five years with us here.
We also welcomed a special guest to the celebrations. Back in 1996, Jason Abbot was one of the founding members of e3 Systems, together with me and Alan Walker.
So, the three of us getting together again after twenty odd years was an added reason to celebrate!
Controlling Artificial Intelligence (AI) is clearly a concern to tech heavyweights.
Did anyone try Chat GPT following my column last month?
I have been listening to some very interesting podcasts over the last month about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Most of them need a health warning attached, as they sure do cast gloom and doom in a very short period of time unless we take action.
In my column last month, I said that I believe AI’s progress is highly dependent on human collaboration. So, AI couldn’t exist without humans, ergo it could be regulated by humans. The authors of these broadcasts, columns and podcasts agree with this and say Robo Cop will not be created unless man instructs it to happen.
An Open Letter was drafted and signed at the end of May 2023, by over a thousand tech leaders, including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, carrying a stark warning that they believe Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses an existential threat to humanity unless we control its development. With just 22 words, the statement reads, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” I wonder why they didn’t include global warming.
They say there are huge upsides to AI if we can control it. One of the reasons they put the statement out is that they feel the study of safety and regulation of AI, and mitigation of the harms, both short-term and long-term, has been understudied compared to the huge gain of capabilities that can be borne out of AI, they need time to catch up and the resources to do so.
Is AI inevitable?
The general feeling is it can’t be stopped. If one company stops developing software, then their competitors will continue. AI is in a parallel dilemma to that which Oppenheimer was in when he was developing the nuclear bomb. If he stopped, the Nazis would get there first. Even if there was a way to get all the companies to stop, then there would still be a teenage prodigy coder, in his bedroom, coding the next upgrade.
Chat GPT 3, the version I have been using, has been tested to have a verbal-linguistic IQ of 120. Chat GPT 4 that is being released will have an IQ of 155 which will be superior to 99.99% of 2,450 of the human testers. Einstein had an IQ of 160. Chat GPT 5 is under development…
SpaceX launched at least another 48 Starlink satellites in July.
On July 7 SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The California launch was of another 48 Starlink V1.5 satellites. The Falcon 9’s first
stage booster landed on a drone ship in the Pacific to be used again. If you haven’t seen how this happens, it’s worth taking a look on YouTube!
Starlink RV/Roam is now available at sea but at a cost.
The flat High Performance Starlink Roam allows users to enjoy high-speed, low-latency internet whilst in motion. However, in order to use a Starlink Roam at sea you need to opt-in to Mobile Priority data or change your service plan to Mobile Priority if it’s available in your area. At sea you will be charged $2.00 for each GB of data used…
That makes Starlink RV/Roam much more expensive to use than the Maritime system. Roam/RV costs $150/m for unlimited use on land, but this now cannot be used at sea.
However, as an example 550GB at sea will cost $2/GB. Total cost being $1,250/m which is $2.3 per GB. The Starlink charge is only $1.00 per GB for their 1TB and 5TB Maritime Plans at sea. So for less than the same price you get twice as much data!
This means Maritime is 45-55% less expensive!!
What does this mean in real terms? It means that if just one person on-board is watching four hours of Netflix or IPTV per day at sea, then it will cost twice the price to use the RV/Roam to do this than if using the Maritime system. And that’s excluding any other use of the internet.
If you are using your RV/Roam like this, for the sake of your budget, we highly recommend an upgrade to Maritime!
The end of June marked the first month where Starlink started charging for the data used above the plan threshold of 50GB, 1TB and 5TB for Maritime and also started charging the $2.00 per GB for the RV/Roam when at sea, as mentioned earlier.
As we expected, there were some clients who were surprised that their service was cut as they had selected to Opt-OUT. The default is to Opt-OUT, so unless you monitor your data usage daily you could be in for a surprise.
There were also some clients who have had bill shock as they had Opted IN! So they were on an unlimited service, but they had not been monitoring how much over the threshold they were running.
How to avoid bill shock or service termination mid-month:
What you need is some help from AI to help you with live data measurement, monitoring, and analysis regarding what you have asked for and what you actually need. And you need this information to be sent to you automatically so that you can make fast decisions.
At e3, we have built this AI into our Starlink service, accessed via the Client Portal my.e3s.com:
- We collect your data numbers from the Starlink servers every half hour.
- By using my.e3s.com you can see your data use across the month.
- We then predict your usage for the rest of the month and display this in red if it’s going into overage.
- We automatically send an email warning when you reach certain thresholds.
- In that email we offer the option to Opt-IN to excess data, if you are clearly not going to make the end of the month, as shown by our predictive data use algorithm.
- If you Opt-IN to use excess data, we send a spend warning by email every $500 used and you can select to Opt-OUT at any time.
If you choose to use a Starlink Reseller, make sure you select a Reseller like e3, which knows how you work, understands the needs in yachting, and is an expert in data communications. Use their experience to shorten your learning curve and benefit from the added value services they offer such as this.
