A cruise liner with banks of oars like a Greek Trireme. The oars
are automated to minimize crew requirements. I was thinking
something along the lines of individual robots sitting in rows like
the crews of old warships. A simple, repetitive task like rowing
ought to be easy enough for a robot
using today's
technology.
I realize initial cost may be prohibitively (sp?) high, but if the
funds could be fronted, I think it would more than pay for itself in
tickets sold. Hell, Imagine the amount of people lining up to
board one of these things.
"Mommy, mommy, I wanna get my picture with the robots!!!"
You could even include the passengers in the rowing work.
Seriously, I'd love to do that for a little while, if only for the photo
opportunity. Simply walk up to a robot oarsman, say "Mind if I cut
in?" and the Robot oarsman will gladly stop rowing and get up to
let you take his place, standing by to take your place and resume
its duty in case you get tired or bored and want to stop.
Because of the close synchronization required in rowing
accurately, there may be a limit on how many passengers can
"assist" at any given time.
(edit: I removed the word "slave" since Wikipedia states that
slaves were not used to crew triremes. Were this knowledge
imparted to the passengers, I'm sure there would be more
interest in this cruise since human rights activists would have no
leg to stand on)