"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.