My response to that, to break the loop, is that they haven't been programmed to be because the technology to do it safely doesn't exist.
Necessity is the mother of invention :-)
My point is that fully automated flight decks deserve the
opportunity. I cannot emphasis that word enough. I make no predictions or promises. I hold no bias one way or the other. I hold that position because I believe two things to be true:
(1) Automation of flight decks has historically proven to be safer than human beings alone. Unless one is willing to put it all down to a grand coincidence I know of no other explanation for the majority of the decrease in risk in accidents in the 20th century.
(2) That the human population continues to expand. That we continue to put more and more planes into the air, ever bigger planes filled with more and more people. That the margins demanded in terms of airline separation continue to shrink. That the system works only because it is a system and not people flying randomly.
So for me, computers, computer programmers, who already doing an excellent job with drones in the military, deserve the opportunity to take it to the next level. Will they succeed; I do not know. But I don't think that pilot training and ever more training is going be adequate to the future demands of a system meeting the needs of 20 billion people.
From weaving looms to cars to computers automation has been resisted at every step but certain populations. Automation in airplanes has been no different. Even today, certain minority groups like the Amish continue to resist all modern technology; that is their prerogative. Yet I don't think that most people desire to go back to the horse and buggy days, occasional fits of pastoral romanticism aside.