Stephen! writes:

You haven't lived until you've piloted an SEL over the mountains in solid
IMC without an autopilot. I logged 2 hours IMC in a 182 over Montana a few
weeks ago. That was a LOT of fun!

But a standard autopilot does what you tell it to. You turn it on and off
yourself, and you tell it what heading to hold, what altitude to maintain,
when to level the wings, and so on. That's very different from a computer
that independently decides when you need "help" and acts on its own initiative
because it thinks you are "out of control."

In solid IMC over mountains, you need precise situational awareness. You don't
have that if a computer is making decisions behind your back.

It's a bit like having a silent copilot who does things whenever he deems them
appropriate without any interaction or instructions from you first. Does that
really enhance safety?