Back in the 1970s I was talking to one of the design team working on what was to become the Tornado ground-attack aeroplane. He told me that the aircraft would be very special because, for the first time, the science of aerodynamics was fully understood. Twenty years later I attended a seminar on aerodynamics, the thrust of which was that turbulent flow, an essential factor in this field, had been found to be non-linear. In other words it could not be mathematically modelled.
To me, this means that a computer cannot be programmed to cope with every possible variation of the air in which we fly. The unexpected still needs the intuitive capacity of the human mind occasionally.
It may be technically possible to certify a pilotless airliner in my lifetime but I, for one, will not be getting on board. I suspect that I will not be alone in this prejudice.
In military terms, have any of the robotics boffins considered how much fun a fighter pilot would have in a sky full of UAVs?
confundemus