the HF kills more people these days than it saves
Sorry, but anyone who actually flies knows that this statement is nonsense with current technology. For every high profile HF related incident/accident there are hundreds if not thousands of "saves" by crew working well.
I have no doubt that one day we will see single pilot and autonomous airliners, but we have a long way to go to that point. People, especially the techno-geeks, get blinded by the capabilities of their new toy while forgetting about 1) reliability and 2) the fact that not all the world has the necessary infrastructure. We've had autoland technology since the 60s, but what proportion of airports have Cat3 on every runway? I'd love to see some of this autonomous technology cope with African ATC...