In this case it is doing the work instead of them. We are increasingly going to have code running critical systems that no person has even bothered to look at.

Despite the best efforts of Humans, the Earth will always be better for life than Mars or the Moon ever could. I guess ‘long term’ is a long time but the biggest danger to Human life is still Humans.

In reality there isn’t any real reason to have a permanent base on either… especially Mars.