fender....I think you might be a little ahead of yourself there. Agreed that autonomous flight is already here, hell we can even do auto lands and have done for quiet some time. I think it will still be some time however before we do without pilots for several reasons. Firstly, the comfort factor. Humans still gain confidence in seeing people (pilots) at the front of aircraft (even if they don't see them for the duration of the flight mind you). The comfort factor I suggest has to do with trust or lack of trust of machines at this point of time should something go wrong. Whether the pilots make the correct decision or not is kind of irrelevant.
Secondly, I don't believe we are at that stage yet and may in fact be some time to overcome the logistics, but more so the expense (take NASA out of the equation) required to establish such a system that allows autonomous flight particularly intercontinental.