Shame to have wasted your annual pprune post then, egsc.
Until that happens the role of the pilot is going to become increasingly dull, as the reach of flight automation continues to grow. Perhaps the role of co-pilot will become the first casualty once automation and captain can be considered each other's redundancy.
The role of the pilot is never dull. He is responsible for the "conduct of the flight".
The flight still needs to be conducted, whether it requires manual flying input or not. Automation merely releases some of his capacity for use in other essential areas of the safe and efficient conduct of the flight.
There always was much more to flying than waggling control surfaces.