> We need to increase automation and, little by little, continue to remove the pilot from the equation until we have pilotless/single-pilot commercial aircraft.

there seems to be a growing consensus in the self-driving car debate that incremental automation is actually pretty dangerous, or at least much less safe than either fully manual or fully autonomous control, to the point where some consider it irresponsible to sell L3 autonomous vehicles at all. is there a particular reason why planes should be different?