So why did we have airplane autopilots decades before car autopilots if it's not easier?
"Easier" != "easy"
"Easier" != "easy"
Airplane autopilot is more like the cruise control feature in your car, not a self-driving computer that does everything for the pilots while they sit back.
Car autopilot and airplane autopilot don't share much in common other than the word "autopilot"
I’m not suggesting the pilots are sitting there doing fuck-all, or that they are not necessarily.
I think what the automate ATC advocates are suggesting is to bring ATC in to the 21st century.
My knowledge is mostly limited to a casual watching of the aviation YouTube boffins.
You still have a human in the loop double checking everything constantly and stepping in as soon as something isn’t routine (which is actually quite frequently).