Re: The industry is also facing a severe shortage of pilots
Pilots are blamed when they cannot recover from a (most-likely) systemic failure. That could be bad weather, lack of experience/training/currency, fatigue (through tiring rosters and a company that doesn't care/piss-poor regulator like EASA), ATC issues, engineering, all sorts. As the last line of defence, they usually get the blame ("they should have saved the aircraft"), but almost always it is a huge line-up of "holes" in the system that lead up to an accident.
On the surface, AF447 was "pilot error", but the Pitot probes were known to be faulty (and replacements were in the hangar for years) and the second officer had almost no real stick-time (all done in the simulator, so no-one knew he would freeze in panic in a real aircraft), etc., etc..
Pilots make probably thousands of saves per day world-wide; usually by anticipating systemic failures early and heading them off before anyone even notices. Mistakes are obviously made, but error-detection and error-recovery methods are probably the most rigorous in any industry.
I don't think that an automated system is going to get anywhere near as capable as a human for a long, long time. I certainly won't fly in one, ever.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
