More likely is a hybrid approach first, with a remote pilot.
Because we already have that, with military drones. I'm unaware of their failure rate, but I'd imagine it would be improving as experience is gained.
There's objections about things like up/down link security, but I'd imagine the typical drone is of huge interest to very well-resourced organisations that presumably are willing to try and degrade or snoop. Whilst there may have been instances of same, I suspect they have been patched pretty quickly.
The only really big barrier to similar control over pax operations is passenger psychology.