I am with Denti, the operating cost of two pilots is fairly small, compared to general operating costs. On the other hand, the cost of development and verification of an autonomous control system is very high
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But this was in fact addressed by the author of the article quoted in the first post.
On an A380 or B744 indeed the cost of the two crew may seem a very small proportion of the overall cost. But - consider the need to carry relief crew, have the crew sleepover at a remote destination, have a contingency for a crew member falling ill - it all adds up.
It was also mentioned that such flight automation could be applied to small aircraft rather then large ones. In the case of a 10 pax plane the cost of having two crew is quite significant. This could open up possibilities which today are simply economically not viable.
Think also of today's ATC. Despite an enormous amount of technology both in the planes and on the ground - the bottleneck of the system is the controller needing to communicate with the pilots via AM radio which dates back about a 100 years.