Human Connections Fuel Barge Industry

In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT. By 2023, it had 100 million users, the fastest spread of a consumer application in history. The revelation of that demand triggered instant pivots among tech companies and began a massive spend on artificial intelligence (AI) and related infrastructure that is estimated to reach $1.3 trillion to date.

Following the hype, we are now in the midst of a skeptical backlash about the capabilities of AI and its requirements, including the build-out of data centers.

Most industries continue to depend on networking and human-to-human connections. If you read the back issues of The Waterways Journal, this seems perhaps more true of the barge industry than some others.

Many of the companies that make up our industry are described as family-like, driven by personal relationships. The captains, pilots, engineers, cooks and deckhands who crew our vessels and are profiled in these pages often mention how a friend, mentor or family member in the industry steered them toward a job on a boat or at a terminal or showed them the opportunities.

Like many other industries, we are in a transition period when many older workers are retiring. At the same time, new boats are being built and christened. While the terms of the maritime revival are still being worked out, the industry continues to need skilled workers to crew vessels and support shoreside operations.

Even as conditions change aboard a towboat, the collective knowledge and experience of the older generation remain invaluable to newer workers. That knowledge transfer most often happens in the workplace — on towboats and at terminals. It’s something that has to happen between people face to face.

As AI becomes more prevalent, those human connections may become even more important.