A brilliant starting point for a discussion. My opinion is that the thing that makes humans good operators is that they are capable of fact finding, learning and self programming. This is not a feature of a lump of traditional software. For example software won't suggest that as the aircraft will only turn left, they'll line up following a series of left turns. It won't think about re-seating passengers to fix CofG problems etc.
But I must disagree with the following:
...that as pilots appear to be the dominant primary cause in aviation accident reports, removing them will remove the errors they make...
It is the human tag fills the functional gap (yawning chasm) between a useless device as delivered by the manufacturer and the all singing, all dancing, highly functional device that we see in service. That device is a ship, a railway locomotive, aircraft or power station. We exist only because we can't be replaced. It is what the human does right millions of times every day that makes flying safe. It's not the few times we foul up that makes it dangerous.
Put the programmer in the plane to make it safer. Errr... Isn't that a pilot though?
PM