I hate manual testing!

Every now and then when you sit among testers you can hear:

"I hate manual testing !"

I tried once to follow this sentence and asked additional questions:
"What do you specifically hate in manual testing ?"
I received following answers:

"I hate doing repetitive tasks!"
"I hate regression tests !"
"I hate writing test scripts for someone else!"
"I hate following someone else’s test script!"
"I don't want to just click around this like a monkey!”

I replied: "What you would like to have instead?"

"I would like to automate something, I would like to do automation testing!"

It's obvious that regression part of testing is best candidate for automation because people are often inefficient with doing repetitive tasks.
What about preparing test scripts in advance or following test script created by someone else? I think that with: creating test scripts from requirements, writing test scripts without seeing product to test, executing test scripts without possibility to do own research, the testing is simply disappearing. The problem is not in manual testing itself but in treating testing like linear office activity whereas in my opinion testing should go beyond verifying what is to what is expected. Secondly why not take advantage from people having "testing DNA" instead of treating them like clicking monkeys ?

Below is the definition of exploratory testing from Cem Kaner’s blog

"Exploratory software testing is a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the value of her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution, and test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project."

I think that with above approach to testing we wouldn't hear often "I hate manual testing!” Do you agree?

Alek