Well summarised. Without wishing to derail the thread, I think it would take a paradigm shift to even reduce the flight deck to one pilot, let alone gain the confidence of the travelling public that flying on an automated or remotely operated commercial aircraft is safe enough. I suspect it would take a century of developing land and sea based automated passenger carrying transport before there is the large scale demand from the travelling public for such air services to be viable.
I think there are more direct threats to the profession; the erosion of T&C’s paired with an ever increase in training costs - with most of the risk being picked up by the trainee. Add to that the climate change argument and the risk of far more restrictions (taxes etc) on air travel to reduce demand, will inevitably reduce the opportunities available.
I personally believe there will be a spike in demand once COVID is fully under control, it’s how long it lasts and how sustainable it is that is the question.