Some modern airliners have computer-based checklists that will verify that all checklist steps were completed correctly for you. They also have alarms that will go off if the aircraft configuration is egregiously wrong on takeoff (eg, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOqMttyD_Zc). With older or smaller jets, however, some of these safety features might be missing or less sophisticated, so it's more on the pilots to correctly execute the checklist.
Automation sounds great, but it must be followed-up as to how it's used or abused in the real world in order to maintain air safety.
A primary concern of automating error detection is that it leads to laziness by cognition of least resistance. In the real world, pilots will simply rely on the machine to give them feedback rather than knowing what's fundamentally wrong themselves. This is dangerous because mastery goes away and you end up with experienced, routine button-pushers that slap a 777 into a seawall or trim some trees.
The other concern is zero incident complacency. If there were a "chaos monkey"-like system that could continuously introduce fire drill challenges, while being able to reveal themselves as authentic or not, would keep pilots alert and grade reactions before something larger happens. This is an instance where automation by purposeful fault injection might be able to maintain reaction fitness more consistently over time.
