surplus1:
Me thinks the ultimate goal of automation is the eventual elimination of piloted aircraft. Think of the money that would save and you’ve just justified the cost. We’re a very long way from that but eventually it will be achieved and passengers will be quite happy with it assured as they will be that absolutely nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong.
I can't 100% say for certain, but I'd say that is in all likelihood utterly inaccurate. The men who worked in aviation software that I studied under and my peers who went into that industry were absolutely adamant that it was not, and in our lifetimes at the very least would never be the case.
The only group of people speculating "the end of manned passenger flight" during the advent of the A320 were the self-same media who are regularly and rightly pilloried on here for not knowing their arse from their elbow when it comes to aviation. They were also the ones who promulgated the misunderstanding that "the computers can override the pilot", "the Habsheim A320 computer [sic] thought it was going to land" and other sundry inaccuracies that nevertheless sent a frisson of outrage through the piloting community that has never completely gone away. Admittedly AI didn't help themselves in the early days, but the foot-in-mouth statements were made by senior management and sales executives, *not* the engineering staff.