This will only happen when the airplane itself is fully automated, at which point the single pilot becomes a piece of backup equipment.

But we are a very, very, very long ways away from that. The cost, technical, regulatory, and public perception hurdles are so high that pilots are simply the cheapest solution for the foreseeable future.

Could we do it right now? Yes. Does it make sense? No. It would be at least equivalent in cost to an apollo/manahattan project...who is going to pay trillions of dollars to get rid of few pilots? Not the government. Airlines? They are lucky if they can plan ahead far enough to make payroll.

I have seen a similar proposal in Europe, floated by some organization nobody had ever heard of which was obviously sponsored by some airline association to scare pilot labor groups. When boeing or airbus starts to make serious noise about this, then it's time to worry. But you'll still have 20 years from then.