Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels
In short: today's best AI models could do about 7% of this job's working time (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) if the work were set up for them, and about 8% by the end of 2028 if progress keeps its long-run pace. The people and hands-on work, about 92% of the time, stays with people.
Command or supervise operations of ships and water vessels, such as tugboats and ferryboats. Required to hold license issued by U.S. Coast Guard.
36,850 people do this job in the US. $92,460 a year.
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on3 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people37 h
Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 3 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 37 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Maintain records of daily activities, personnel reports, ship positions and movements, ports of call, weather and sea conditions, pollution control efforts, or cargo or passenger status (about 1 h); Learn to operate new technology systems and procedures through instruction, simulators, or models (under an hour); Arrange for ships to be fueled, restocked with supplies, or repaired (under an hour).
Estimates for a typical week of this job, if progress keeps its long-run pace, counting work the best models finish four times in five. Every task is below.
of the working time. Now is projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index.
- 8%
- 2%
- 90%
of the work: Anthropic's measure of what people already bring to Claude at work (2025). It counts help with part of a task, so it can be higher than the share within reach.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
Change assumptionsHide assumptionsLong-run pace, four in five
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 2.4 work days long four times in five.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 0%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 5%. Today's estimate: 7%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
Measured use over time
Of the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled and tied to a work task, no reportable share went to this job's tasks in May 2026; 0 of its 30 tasks showed up. Within each of Anthropic's methods, never across a change: none to 0.0022% (released February and March 2025).
Each release
| Conversations | Share | Rank | Tasks seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released February 2025 | none | n/a | 0 of 30 |
| Released March 2025 | 0.0022% | 649 of 703 | 1 of 30 |
| The week of Aug 4, 2025 (released September 2025) | none | n/a | 0 of 30 |
| The week of Nov 13, 2025 (released January 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 30 |
| The week of Feb 5, 2026 (released March 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 30 |
| April 2026 (released June 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 30 |
| May 2026 (released June 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 30 |
Measured, not estimated: Anthropic's samples of Claude.ai conversations, each tied by a model to an O*NET task, from the Anthropic Economic Index. It says where Claude's use goes, not how much of this job's working time it covers, so it is not on the same scale as the reach above. The releases differ in their sample, their classifier and the smallest share they report (the June 2026 file rounds each task to a hundredth of a percent, so a smaller task reads as none), which is why a change of method starts a new line. At least 96% of each older release's task-tied use matched this site's tasks, and all of the newest. Claude.ai only, so use through other tools and other companies' models is not in it. Every job ranked.
Robots and the physical work
Anthropic rates 51% of this job's working time as physical work. For 43% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 14% in a purpose-built cell, 13% in a structured facility, 15% in any setting. 0.87 of 3, the 196th highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 49%
- No robot shown 8%
- In a purpose-built cell 14%
- In a structured facility 13%
- In any setting 15%
Anthropic's rating, not this site's estimate: Claude Opus 5, searching the web, rated each physical O*NET task by the kind of setting in which a robot it could cite (deployed, sold or demonstrated) does most of the task, weighted by its own estimate of each task's share of the time (What work can robots do?, September 30, 2026, data CC BY 4.0; every job ranked). A robot shown somewhere is not a robot in your building: cost, setup and safety decide that. The share within reach on this page still counts no body work. The robot behind each rated task is under the task below.
The tasks
Sorted by . 30 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stand watches on vessels during specified periods while vessels are under way.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a structured facility, Saildrone USV autonomy (Voyager/Surveyor/Spectre) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 14% | 3.3 h3.3 h to 6.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Steer and operate vessels, using radios, depth finders, radars, lights, buoys, or lighthouses.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in any setting, GENBU (DFFAS+ / MEGURI2040 autonomous navigation system) (The Nippon Foundation MEGURI2040 consortium) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 13% | 1.7 h25 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Tow and maneuver barges or signal tugboats to tow barges to destinations.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Sea Machines SM300 aboard Foss tug Rachael Allen (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 8% | 2.5 h50 min to 6.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Inspect vessels to ensure efficient and safe operation of vessels and equipment and conformance to regulations.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 7% | 1.7 h25 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Direct courses and speeds of ships, based on specialized knowledge of local winds, weather, water depths, tides, currents, and hazards.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 6% | 38 min13 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Consult maps, charts, weather reports, or navigation equipment to determine and direct ship movements.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 5% | 38 min13 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Perform various marine duties, such as checking for oil spills or other pollutants around ports or harbors or patrolling beaches.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: in a structured facility, D-Hive drone-in-a-box network (Port of Antwerp-Bruges with DroneMatrix, SkeyDrone, Proximus) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 1.7 h50 min to 5 h | Stays with people | |
| Serve as a vessel's docking master upon arrival at a port or at a berth.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Olympia Dream Seto autonomous ro-pax ferry (MEGURI2040 Remote Island Ferry Working Group) (Kokusai Ryobi Ferry with Mitsubishi Shipbuilding, Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding, Japan Marine Science) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 1.3 h25 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Prevent ships under navigational control from engaging in unsafe operations.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 3% | 25 min8 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Maintain boats or equipment on board, such as engines, winches, navigational systems, fire extinguishers, or life preservers.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 3% | 1.3 h25 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Dock or undock vessels, sometimes maneuvering through narrow spaces, such as locks.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Wärtsilä autodocking on ferry Folgefonn (Norled) (demonstrated). Anthropic's rating. | 3% | 50 min17 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Maintain records of daily activities, personnel reports, ship positions and movements, ports of call, weather and sea conditions, pollution control efforts, or cargo or passenger status.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 38 min13 min to 1.7 h | 100%Half by now |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025).
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025).
Questions about this job
- How much of the work of Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 7% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 8% by the end of 2028, on METR's long-run pace at four in five. Within reach means a model could finish work that long at that reliability. It is not a forecast of jobs lost or of savings.
- Which tasks of Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels come within reach first?
- Weighted by the time each takes, the tasks with the most within reach now (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) are: Maintain records of daily activities, personnel reports, ship positions and movements, ports of call, weather and sea conditions, pollution control efforts, or cargo or passenger status (100% of the task's time now); Learn to operate new technology systems and procedures through instruction, simulators, or models (71% of the task's time now, 100% by the end of 2028); and Arrange for ships to be fueled, restocked with supplies, or repaired (99% of the task's time now).
- Which tasks of Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Stand watches on vessels during specified periods while vessels are under way; Steer and operate vessels, using radios, depth finders, radars, lights, buoys, or lighthouses; and Tow and maneuver barges or signal tugboats to tow barges to destinations. Together such tasks are about 92% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels?
- In the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled for May 2026, no reportable share went to this job's tasks. Anthropic's labor market measure puts the share of the job's tasks seen in real Claude use at work at 0%. These are measures of use, not of how much of the work AI could finish, and they cover Claude only.
- Can robots do the physical work of Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 51% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 43% of the working time, 15% in any setting. Its index is 0.87 of 3. One example: GENBU (DFFAS+ / MEGURI2040 autonomous navigation system) for "steer and operate vessels, using radios, depth finders, radars, lights, buoys, or lighthouses". A robot shown somewhere is not one in every workplace; this site's own estimates still count no physical work as within reach.
- How is this estimated?
- From the 30 tasks O*NET lists for the occupation, each with an estimated length checked against GDPval and a share of the working time, each classed as desk, people or body work, and METR's measurements of how long a task the best AI models can finish, carried forward to the date from the latest, Claude Mythos Preview (early) in April 2026. Data checked November 10, 2026.
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