It's as simple as this.
Flight, among many other human endeavours, is just that...a human endeavour. If you design humans out of the equation it becomes completely non worthwhile.
Just because something is technically feasible doesn't make it a good idea.
At what point do we stop designing people out of life?
The ultimate computer known to mankind is the human brain..infinitely more capable than anything some loser who designs ultimate digital computers, and believes them infallible because unlike women they don't reject him, could ever come up with.
It seems to me very few 'airline pilots' have so far contributed to this thread...we do actually make many, MANY decisions each and every flight.
The reason airline travel is the safest way from A to B is because of the humans in the front...not the gadgets!
And be very carefull of assigning all human error in aircraft crashes to 'pilot error'...the pilots are often having to cope with the errors of others...notably 'Engineers'.
One 'Captain' on board?
How many sectors do you want to fly between A and B?
I have 15 to 20 years left 'airline flying' and this is my prognosis for my remaining career.
Aircraft will not travel significantly faster.
You can forget superfast 'lifting bodies' full of pax skipping across the atmosphere between Sydney and London in a few hours.
Aircraft will not be significantly more automated than they currently are. They may in fact be less so..or at least be designed to interface with the pilot better than some are at present.
After that I don't really care...I'll hop in my Bonanza and fly the way flying should be... when that is not possible I'll go sailing...with a sextant, chart and log and all the computer programmers can go fark themselves.
Chuck.