The story I linked had a lot of information about automation. I've taken the information from that story and combined it with my interactions with computer prog

The story I linked had a lot of information about automation. I've taken the information from that story and combined it with my interactions with computer programmers, business executives, and pilots to synthesize the opinion that fully automated commercial airplanes aren't viable. "Air trains" and some subway lines/systems are automated. Interesting that the only systems that have successfully been automated are literally on rails, and are generally enclosed. It's a fair assumption that the automation won't make the same mistakes as a human, but it's quite a stretch to assume it won't make it's own special flavor of mistake. Also, you've pointed out the crashes that humans caused, but not the crashes that were avoided by humans. This is getting far from my field of expertise, but you've got to be careful to avoid selection bias.