Don't Hang writes:
how many rubbers could they realistically get in before catastrophe strikes?
This is off-topic and strictly for your education, Hang.
Here in the colonies, "rubber" is the slang term for condom.
I can now dry my office chair, thank you for the chuckle, and get back to work!
Back O/T...
The interesting thing about this recurring discussion is the history of automation itself, across all industries.
It has gone from replacing repetitive manual labor which was hard to hire for and harder to retain trained employees for, to replacing less-accurate human assembly with more accurate robotic assembly, to replacing skilled humans and semi-skilled for the sake of cost savings.
What differs in the aviation world is that the "growing pains" of automation in other industries is generally less disaster-prone - a robot on a factory floor can mess up, and usually all that is lost is a bit of product.
Certainly, the technology is already available to automate flight.
Doing so represents a very complex system.
Referring to
Mud's post, I think we can consider possible comms failures and how to cope with them as the major stumbling block.
Everything in the air, and on the ground waiting to take off, is subject to the whims of a plethora of variables - block length changes due to winds at cruise, et cetera.
"De-bugging" this system will be fascinating to watch.
RR