The technology is there.
This is GM' s driverless car:
YouTube - GM's driverless car
YouTube - GM's driverless car
The U.S. DOD holds what' s called the Darpa Grand Challenge where all sorts of driverless cars are exhibited in a competition.
I am not necessarily in favour of removing the pilots out of the cockpit, but with the FAA involved as an interested party, chances are that it' s going to happen anyway.
The technology is there already to have no pilots..
. . . Yes, as long as it's a normal flight and everything works. No hyd/fuel valve/pump failures; no A/P, A/T snafus; no auto press failures; no bird strikes; no asymetrical/split flaps; no smoke in the cabin . . .
When there is a systems malfunction, there is not much a pilot can do.
If you have flaps assymetry, it' s not like pilots take out their toolbox, open the door to go and fix the thing.
All pilots do is they follow a checklist and activate alternate procedures, things that a computer can be programmed to do, even for very complex tasks. You can program a computer to do a single engine failure climb, you can even program it to glide and ditch after an all-engine failure, at the most suitable location according to an integrated database, wind calculations and water surface wave calculation patterns.
During the glide, your computer could do 50 relight attempts where pilots could only do 3.
An airplane, unlike a car, costs several dozens millions, and can afford a full automation. They can afford to pay for the software, and as said before, it is alot more complex to design a software for a driverless car than it is for a pilotless airplane. As a safety back-up you still need people who monitor and can override, at remote locations.
Airbus and Boeing have the same level of automation if you compare same generations of aircraft. The illusion comes from the sidestick vs. control column philosophy, but you can fly an Airbus in direct law without any computer protection.