I've been working in data science or in academia for most of the last decade and would argue that the primary benefits of using statistical models for automatio

I've been working in data science or in academia for most of the last decade and would argue that the primary benefits of using statistical models for automation are that they are fast and cheap compared to a trained professional, which frees those trained professionals up to spend more time on the difficult judgment calls. I've seen very few examples of superhuman performance on complex, practical tasks (although it is very satisfying to train a model to that level).