Ferry pilots

I was listening to BBC Radio 4 earlier today while driving in my car and they were talking about Ferry Pilots.  These are aircraft pilots who fly planes from manufacturers to customers or from one base to another for maintenance purposes etc.  They were saying that this is often quite a dangerous job as it can involve flying small planes over much longer distances than they were originally intended to fly.  However, there are some pilots who love this work and because they get to do all the flying manually rather than using computers and autopilot as is often the case in commercial flights.

This led me to thinking about music. I wonder if they will ever come up with an "autopilot" for musicians?  Perhaps robots who can play the music for us? I guess in a small way this has already happened with player pianos and mechanical instruments.  However, it really isn't the same as live music played by a real person. If you went to a concert and watched a grand piano play itself you wouldn't feel you had received your money's worth!  Just as the ferry pilots are taking risks by flying long distances without the benefit of autopilot, I wonder if part of the thrill of live music, from the audience's point of view, is the risk that the musician could have a memory slip or make a major mistake and fall apart in the middle of a performance? I wonder if this keeps the audience on the edge of their seat?  Or maybe its the spontaneity that can happen in a live performance with a real musician?  The musician can adjust to the acoustics of the building, the reaction of the audience and the instrument in a way that a robot or computer could not.

So am I worried that musicians could be replaced by robots or computers in the future?  Certainly not!  Like the ferry pilots, musicians prepare and practise as much as they can but there is always that chance that something can go wrong in a performance.  The ferry pilots have emergency equipment on board ready for these occasions and in the same way musicians often have ways of dealing with things when mistakes happen in performances.  However, there is always a risk in performance but surely that is partly what makes live music so exciting for audiences (and nerve wracking for musicians!).