content: We already had this discussion in another topic about the same news, but I think this is improbable for a lot of reasons. Actually getting rid of humans opens up some much more effective deterrence. Pirates are not generally paramilitary forces, they're little more than a half dozen guys in a skiff with some really big guns. The lack of humans on boards means you can cover this ship in an thick air tight shell. Coat the surface with a some sort of slippery polymer on a curved surface and almost no pirates would be able to even penetrate the ship, let alone commandeer it.  Pirates don't tend to earn money by looting cargo ships. The earn money in ransom. Ransom entails being able to control a ship. That may be literally impossible in this case. And on the topic of crews, the crew is more likely to be be a liability than a deterrence. Once pirates manage to board the ship they can hold the crew hostage. Even if not actively held hostage it posts a major problem for efforts to retake the ship. And the second the ship's communications are taken offline or it detects breach attempts it can direct itself towards the nearest friendly coast and the captain, thousands of miles away in a virtual reality bridge, can contact defense services in that country and let them know what's happening and where.