I have no doubt that some time in the future, we will have autonomous aircraft that are safer and more efficient than human piloted ones. However, we will have to completely change the way we certify things if ML/AI is involved. Maybe a LPC/OPC and LOE for Hal? At the moment I have little confidence in the state-of-the-art as we are only just starting to realise how complex the problems are and how fragile and narrow the competence of things like neural networks can be.
Also, 95% of my job as a pilot is interacting with other humans and trying to sort out their problems, which tends to get overlooked.