I agree in large - though manned fighters will become irrelevant too. As it is - much of the time an F-35 pilot will not be actually looking outside, they'll be looking into their helmet screen. There's a good EO DAS video that shows the reasons why - though the only one I can find right now isn't of the best quality - http://youtu.be/CwvnhFgzIKI
So the pilot isn't actually controlling the flight surfaces, that is all fly by wire. And the pilot is not actually looking outside with the naked eye. So - really the only reason to have a pilot actually in the cockpit is if the side sending up the plane is worried they'll lose the ability to control it remotely.
"So - really the only reason to have a pilot actually in the cockpit is if the side sending up the plane is worried they'll lose the ability to control it remotely."
Well the only thing worse than losing your fighter to enemy force, is the enemy force controlling your fighter against you.
With current technology I'd say the best possibility is single manned fighter controlling few unmanned fighters with two-way highly encrypted optical link. So that when engaging enemy the pilot would just send one of the unmanned against a identified target, bit like a more maneuverable missile. Then the AI would kick in.
In the future something like electronic tunneling radio might do the job. I really don't believe in AI doing the whole thing, scenarios are too complex. And there has to be someone taking the responsibility.
So the pilot isn't actually controlling the flight surfaces, that is all fly by wire. And the pilot is not actually looking outside with the naked eye. So - really the only reason to have a pilot actually in the cockpit is if the side sending up the plane is worried they'll lose the ability to control it remotely.