One jet landing every minute, coordinating the airspace for miles around the airport, along with coordinating non-landing traffic (helicopters, small craft), while making sure these (already heavily automated) flight systems dont get confused and kill several hundred people sounds easy to you, along with keeping everything on time and schedule?

Go write it then.

> Every time I've asked what's so hard about automating ATC

Why don’t you describe the hypothetical automation you believe would solve the problems then?

My hunch is that either your ideas are already implemented (like GP post who said they need to add red lights at the runway instances, except yeah, they do have that), or they are just bad.

> indignant sputtering and patronizing hand-waving.

Preemptively insulting everyone who might respond to you certainly looks like you’re asking for a real conversation. :|

Your accusation of “patronizing hand-waving” is especially off base considering you literally proposed nothing except “automating”. Hand waving indeed.

I worked in aviation in the late 1990s and automating ATC is all they could talk about. So, that's almost 30 years of talking and no action.