I'm unconvinced. More patrol boats are clearly a good thing for protecting a high-value ship. But not having a sailor on board seems pointless. It makes the patrol boat More unreliable (if communications are lost the boat shuts down). It doesn't save manpower because sailors monitor the boat 1-on-1 to prevent tragedies. Why not just have that sailor on the boat? And the boat shown doesn't seem any cheaper - its a regular patrol boat with robotic systems installed - still has manual controls, seats, cargo space as if it were to be manned.
And what can a patrol boat do? It can't board another boat, take over its controls and redirect it. It can only choose to shoot it (with onboard remote-control gun) or not. Very much limited in mission capability.
Whereas a very-much-cheaper drone boat of 1-2 meters in size would be harder for other combatants to detect, could travel in novel ways (submersible? High-speed hydrofoil?), and could act as a torpedo if needed to disable another combatant. Kind of like quad-coptors vs full-sized helicopters.
