@ rainboe
I'm sorry but this is the kind of tech behavior that prevents us recovering faults, bugs, errors, mistakes. This is deep myopia, total submissiveness to an aviation company. This behavior is like radical religiousness. Yet Boeing is not God. The fact that their systems are highly technological and advanced doesn't mean that they wouldn't make fatal mistakes. In fact the higher the technology used the more complicated the code, processes etc... and are prone to deficiency. The systems are designed, coded, reviewed & manufactured by man. An engineer has months, years to solve a problem, unlike the crew with limited decision making time.
Sorry for the ATC question, that I simply asked to learn. Yet as you seem to be defending Boeing you shouldn't be concentrated on that and rather answer basic system design critics and system fault fixing issues I raised. I asked relevant questions, instead of categorically denying the inputs of a non pilot, non-tech newcomer you should go research and try to answer, so that we all learn.
PS: Sorry for my jargon I used autopilot in general referring to many parts of this complicated system, just to simplify things and try to see the big picture. In this forum you are so taken away with abbreviations and technicalities that you sometimes can not see things as basic and simple as an outsider.