> One of the most well-known relatively recent failures of the Airbus system was the Air France flight, and IIRC a main cause was the computer switching to a mostly manual flight mode (due to a sensor failure) and the resulting change in how the flight controls work confused the copilot to the point that he stalled the plane.

That's a rather misleading take, given by people pushing a certain agenda. The first officer in question was hauling the stick back as far as it would go. This resulted in the plane stalling. That's not a matter of confusing flight modes or computer behaviour - pretty much any aeroplane will stall if you pull the stick back all the way (and what else would you expect to happen?)