@groundbum
Pilots don't get selected, trained and paid to do their daily routine. If so, any person would be suitable. Monkeys have been trained to fly aircraft and land them.
A pilot is there for when things don't go as advertised and sorry if I offend anyone here but the 99% of the people don't possess the skills to adequatly handle the situation. Having said that the people at the pointy end are still people, with their flaws. As are the engineers designing UAVs or iPods.