Don't blame th ebean counters
The human race has had to adapt to more new technology in the last forty years than in the three thousand before it. We are relying on things that we can see working, because for centuries that is how we knew they were real. We as a people have not learned to be cautious about implementing new systems because things have changed too much for our perceptions to adjust. We see it working and we believe it will continue to work. Like lemmings, we march down to the computer shop and buy Microsoft windows, despite all the security flaws and bugs we hear about. Of course, it is the bean counters that want to implement cost-saving measures in the first place, but their managers are wowed by technology that appears to promise all and let them get away with it.
We are a quick-fix society. If there is something invented last week, we gleefully rely on it if it stops us having to think about the problem. Yes, we rely on governments to keep manufacturers in check, but peple who work for them are humans too, still in techno-culture shock themselves some of the time.
I am not a professional pilot, and usually stay quiet here as my mere PPL demands, but I feel that as an engineer I may have something useful to add. I once had the pleasure of flying an Aztec YYZ-YUL with a former Red Arrow in the right seat to get some instrument time. He couldn't understand why I flew it manually all the way. Now you know.
After taking post-graduate security and software engineering courses, I made a couple of rules: don't fly unnecessarily, don't live near a Nuclear Generating Station, and always keep the backup system running in parallel and well-exercised (that's the aircrew in this case).
Only the paranoid will survive. Keep vigilant!