3hl,
Not a bad write-up... thanks.
Somebody in a much earlier post referred to the 'video game generation'.
That may be a bit excessive, but there is some underlying truth in it.
There were autopilots in the 'olden' days (even the pre-WWII 'very olden days'), but they only did the simple jobs, like ATT HOLD, ALT HOLD, HDG HOLD, and suchlike, relieving the human pilots from the mind-numbing (on long flights) task of simply maintaining altitude or heading, without letting them lose 'situational awareness'.
'George' was a much-appreciated crew-member in those days. Nowadays, 'HAL' is no longer looked at in the same way.....