> Large aircraft are basically self-driving these days. Pilots can choose to do almost nothing at all from takoff to landing. Sort of. The plane will continue

> Large aircraft are basically self-driving these days. Pilots can choose to do almost nothing at all from takoff to landing. Sort of. The plane will continue to fly the pre-programmed route without pilot involvement, so the actual manipulation of the control surfaces is no longer their primary task. But there are systems to monitor, controllers to talk to, weather systems to navigate around, climbs/descents to find more favourable winds, fuel imbalances to correct, etc. And of course, baseball scores to pick up from ADF. I'd liken it to how (most) software engineers are not writing in Assembly. Instead they're using higher-level languages and libraries to solve problems. Similarly a pilot is not hands-on flying for 7 hours over the Atlantic, but they're still operating the aircraft.