Vortex ring state is an extremely real danger with these craft, the computer is what stands between the occupant and a fiery death. Hence the concierge treatment.

There's no manual mode per se with something like a quadrotor, even a simple one requires really unintuitive applications of thrust to affect things like yaw. You could fly one in 'rate' mode though - where the stick deflection commands pitch/roll/yaw rates directly.

Unlike a 172, it's pretty unstable flown like that, and most people would turn such a craft into a smoking crater shortly.