And creating an autonomous UCAS capable of conducting air to air combat isn't going to be cheap at all. The reason we like drones now is because they have the performance characteristics of a Cessna, and they don't put pilots at risk. To compete in A2A combat, they'll need performance (and avionics) that exceed what our best fighters currently have. That will be buku $$...
If you have a "pack" of drones big enough that a single enemy combat aircraft can't take them all down at once then if an enemy aircraft were to fire on a drone in the "pack" it could automatically be designated an enemy and be hunted by the remainder?
What will you do when the enemy sends up unmanned autonomous aircraft that ignore these niceties and shoot down all your manned fighters?
I'm not dismissing the legitimate problems you raise, but we need to prepare for war, which almost by definition is the absence of rules, such as distinguishing military from civilian targets.
EDIT: Also of interest, if an autonomous fighter shoots down a civilian aircraft, is it a war crime? Mistakes happen in war that aren't crimes. And if it is, who goes to jail?
Completely off topic, but did you mean the French beaucoup to imply the phrase "Lots of money" here?
For example if we have 50 drones doing some task it's stupid to hire 50 people to manage them like pilots. Much better to hire 5 people and give them better ui (construct 360 degree view from all the drones feeds localy and send only the aggregated information.
