I guess in many ways I'm being overly philosophical here. Do forgive me, I just can't see a way for man to design a level of judgement and wisdom that exceeds his own (those that do have clearly been brainwashed by Hollywood) and it's for that reason I don't believe it will ever be a better solution overall. Yes ultimately everything will be judged by safety statistics and given a human brain vs computer brain performing repetitive tasks, 99% of the time the computer will win for obvious reasons but that 1% will forever haunt.
If this is the argument for automation then it should be the same argument for computers running the rest of our lives. An automation bubble will form one day very soon where we discover we have very little to live for if computers are doing everything. What is it that makes this world go around at the end of the day? It is the ability to do something someone else can't or won't whilst taking financial reward in the process. What worth will we have as humans if we can't do anything? We certainly can't rely on the state for help! The automation bubble will burst and it will probably burst long before pilotless airliners are a reality. Automation is making great strides in every sector, what's to say the whole idea of flying from one part of the world to another will still be around by then?
Last edited by Superpilot; 1st Dec 2014 at 21:57.