New American Fighter Flies

[StainlessSteelCynic]

There is something of a middle-ground here as well.
One of the first concepts I saw for future combat aircraft was of a manned fighter that would oversee several drone fighters.
With the advancements that AI could offer for unmanned aircraft, some of that tech could be used to remove some of the management that a human pilot normally does thus making a human pilot more effective than at current.

Yet another proposal was for drone fighters being piloted by someone in a command shack much like drones are used at present. This would keep human oversight of the aircraft but remove the problems of having a human in the aircraft.

Personally, I don't see human pilots going away anytime soon. Whether they will be sitting in the plane or sitting in a command module on the ground remains to be seen but I don't think humans will be entirely eliminated from the decision making process for combat aircraft for some time yet.