Right now all ATC clearances (routing, takeoff, landing) are done by AM radio. So how would a pilotless taxi do this? Drones don't, as currently UAS are physica

Right now all ATC clearances (routing, takeoff, landing) are done by AM radio. So how would a pilotless taxi do this? Drones don't, as currently UAS are physically separated into their own airspace, they also can't fly in instrument/zero visibility conditions. To share the same space requires either really agile and smart flying taxis that will always avoid legacy aircraft, regardless of conditions, a kind of "smart separation" of aircraft, or we need a new air traffic control system. Setting aside ATC's automation, even autonomous aircraft has all sorts of unsolved technical problems. The reality today is that the vast majority of flights are not automated at all when it comes to taxi, takeoff, and landings. Most flights use Visual Flight Rules. The landing capacity of airports when using Instrument Flight Rules is substantially less, and there are various technical reasons why not least of which is that there is only one kind of precision approach to landing system, and it requires ground systems, airborne system, and pilot competency and certification. So we need a separate system invented for autonomous systems to do this at scale, while also integrating into the existing VFR and IFR systems for legacy aircraft. Or someone comes up with a cheap enough retrofit of existing airplane cockpits that this can happen really fast, and just ban all the legacy aircraft from operating in autonmous only space (make it Class A, B and C space). That's sort of a joke because this would be very expensive. But maybe a hybrid pilot with augmented non-human secondary pilot could make this vaguely plausible. Add in both FAA and ICAO regulations (global regulations apply for obvious reasons), economics, politics, and it's just really complicated. So I have to laugh every time I read "technical problems all solved" and "this could happen in 5 to 10 years". That's something I've heard for 30 years...