1. I'm curious what happened to the pilots: did they remain in their role as fighter pilots or were they transferred to other airframes that pull fewer Gs?
2. I can't help but think about the possibility that software that can take over when it thinks the pilot is non-responsive could be hacked to crash on purpose or be taken over remotely. Perhaps this is a "feature" that will allow the F-16 fleet to be used as UCAVs without telling the public (or our enemies) about it?
I don't understand your second point. How could a F-16 be hacked remotely when there's no remote access? There's no attack surface. How is this different from any other fly-by-wire system?
There is remote access. Fighters routinely exchange data via datalink like LINK 16 and JTIDs. It's not inconceivable that this could lead to some exposure. It would depend on how segmented the flight control computers are from the other computers. A lot of the cyber warfare plans are attempting this type of attack.
Link-16 is JTIDS. It doesn't have any connection to flight controls or any controls of anything it's deployed in (which is just about everything). It's also type-1 encrypted.
2. I can't help but think about the possibility that software that can take over when it thinks the pilot is non-responsive could be hacked to crash on purpose or be taken over remotely. Perhaps this is a "feature" that will allow the F-16 fleet to be used as UCAVs without telling the public (or our enemies) about it?