Between You and AI

10Agency

ON THE NIGHT of 13 January 2012, the Costa Concordia, a luxury cruise liner, veered dangerously close to the island of Giglio off the coast of Tuscany in Italy. The ship was meant to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona, but when it deviated from its planned route to sail closer to the island, it struck a reef known as the Scole Rocks and the to-be-enjoyable trip turned into a nightmare.

At the helm of the Costa Concordia was Captain Francesco Schettino. He had decided to perform a “sail-by” (or saluto, in Italian)—a risky maneuver meant to impress passengers and salute fellow sailors. Some reports even suggested he was trying to impress a woman who was accompanying him on the bridge that evening, but that is not the point. The point is that what began as a theatrical display ended in catastrophe. The collision tore open the hull, and chaos erupted as the ship began to sink. Of the 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew onboard, 32 people lost their lives.

What made the tragedy even more infamous was the captain’s response. Rather than coordinating the evacuation—a process that dragged on for over six hours and became one of the worst-managed in maritime history—Schettino abandoned ship while passengers were still trapped aboard. As an excuse, he claimed he had “accidentally fallen into a lifeboat”—a defense that was widely mocked and ultimately dismissed by prosecutors. He was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years ...