My experience in the field is about 15 years old at this point, but here is my take on it. Your supposition is premised on one of two things: (1) drone AI that can out-think a human; or (2) perfect communications between drones and an operator on the ground.
These are unsolved, and very difficult problems. The state-of-the-art right now is that we have trouble getting back the video feeds from our reconnaissance drones due to limitations in the downlink system. Drones also create new attack vectors--you might be able to ground hundreds of drones by taking out a handful of satellites or communications hubs.
It is possible that these obstacles can be overcome. But waiting on technology to be where you need it to be can be a very iffy thing. (Cue: "we were supposed to by on Mars by 2025."). I certainly wouldn't gamble the national defense on it.
It seems like what you need is a manned fighter that stays in the air some distance behind a fleet of semi-autonomous drones doing the actual fighting/killing. The pilot acts as an officer, selecting targets and providing general orders, while his or her plane provides the short-range encrypted comms which are hard to intercept or interrupt.
I speculate there may one day be a place for a high-flying, well defended drone pilot carrier, whose purpose is to get the pilots close enough to the drones to have guaranteed instantaneous remote control - not even a satellite delay.
There might be, say, 6 pilots in that ship in VR rigs controlling the drones. They might be controlling dozens of drones a reasonable distance away, which are acting sometimes autonomously and sometimes under remote control, as needed.
One thing I’ve often wondered: are there any video games that can be considered “classics” in the sense that people will make reference to them and expect that most of a broader-culture audience will pick up on them?
I ask because I really want to start using starcraft metaphors in discussing society. The planting of the psi emitter on Tarsonis is such a powerful example of a human being willing to defect hard against his fellow humans in a way that is seen in history but I don’t think I’ve seen in popular fiction.
In my mind they are always remotely controlled, not only because I think it's extremely dangerous to have an algorithm pulling the literal trigger, but also because of what you mentioned.
This, by the way, is why all RAF pilots are officers. Mere enlisted are not to be trusted with nuclear weapons, back when we had tac nukes. In WW2 lots of pilots were sergeants.
I should be clear that I think this policy is classist nonsense. There’s no reason that posh boys from Eton should be considered more trustworthy than anyone - probably the opposite in fact
But doesn't this assume that there will be some sort of 1v1 matchup between the pilots and the drones? I don't see any reason why this should be true, as the drones should be able to be produced much cheaper. So sure, maybe I human pilot could always shoot down a single drone, but how would they go against a swarm of 50 drones all perfectly coordinating with each other.
A fighter jet is still a fighter jet and just getting rid of the pilot isn’t going to make them cost 50x less (just like future autonomous cars aren’t going to be cheaper than what we have now) Also I don’t think the point of op was necessarily to envision a 1v1 scenario but that the AI needs to be at the level of a human more so becouse it is carrying extremely lethal weapons that one would prefer to be used under human (or equivalent) judgement.
Also, until full AI control, it seems that operators not in the field have subpar performance if not opposing desire (see the drone operators going deeply depressed)
These are unsolved, and very difficult problems. The state-of-the-art right now is that we have trouble getting back the video feeds from our reconnaissance drones due to limitations in the downlink system. Drones also create new attack vectors--you might be able to ground hundreds of drones by taking out a handful of satellites or communications hubs.
It is possible that these obstacles can be overcome. But waiting on technology to be where you need it to be can be a very iffy thing. (Cue: "we were supposed to by on Mars by 2025."). I certainly wouldn't gamble the national defense on it.