Hi anotherthing
Automation only does what it is told, i.e. what it is programmed to do. Its errors are only those of the designers (e.g. programmers). The problems arise especially when automation is designed to do the 'meat' of the work, e.g. the judgement/decision making. ATC is one of the few safety-critical jobs of its kind that is still extremely human centred and the controller has not been reduced to a monitor. Of all the safety-critical roles I have studied, it is still the most interesting. But as you know, there is only so much traffic that a person can take, and you can redesign airspace without reducing workload. Ultimately it's either more automation (of the right kind - and that's the hard part) or a slowdown in traffic growth.