Much like the automation levels of self-driving cars, there are different kinds of autopilots. A small aircraft might have heading-hold/altitude-hold only. A modern airliner will pretty much fly itself and the crew is only there to "supervise" (to the extent that they are seeing a similar rise in accidents in situations the autopilot cannot handle, because the crew doesn't know when to override it and they don't have the proficiency to fly the plane properly in those situations).

You might be surprised to learn that autoland has been around since the 60s... the UK were early pioneers due to notoriously poor weather in the British Isles, autoland systems allowed them a highly safe all-weather landing capability in zero-visibility conditions. The US was much slower and our aircraft really only caught up to some of the UK aircraft's capabilities in the 80s and 90s, and tended to rely much more heavily on ground guidance.