There is a cute story about future aircraft, re automation.
There will be only two occupants in the cockpits of the future, a dog and a pilot. The pilot is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.
I spoke briefly with a cousin (who flys long-range biz-jets) about the accident before the FDRs were recovered. He mentioned he flys through the accident region regularly and weather is always present in the inter-tropical convergence zone.
FWIW, (that cousin has many thousands of hours in heavy transport aircraft), noted a lack of hand-flying skills and discouragement of practice developing such was common in all organizations he was familiar with. I suppose its due to its impact upon efficiency, hence range and “flight safety”. >PS