automated vs. automatic (2025)

Automated translation systems are far from perfect, and even Google’s will not put human translators out of a job anytime soon.---taken from the NYT

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Dear all,

Can I think automatic and automated are interchangeable in this case? Thanks.

LQZ

Hello LQZ. They amount to the same thing but the fact is that some things are automated while others are automatic. I think maybe it has something to do with the level of technological sophistication involved:

an automatic can-opener
an automatic washing-machine

an automated translation system
an automated baggage-handling system

Yes, I'm reasonably sure that's it: I'd use automated for something

complex, automatic for something which is more mechanical and doesn't do much.

hello fellow forumers!

I'm reviving this thread to present the following question:

Do we say 'automatic e-mail' or 'automated e-mail' ?

You know, for those e-mails that we sometimes receive that are not sent by someone, but are forwarded automatically in certain cases and the sort.

Rufiaa said:

hello fellow forumers!

I'm reviving this thread to present the following question:

Do we say 'automatic e-mail' or 'automated e-mail' ?

You know, for those e-mails that we sometimes receive that are not sent by someone, but are forwarded automatically in certain cases and the sort.

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I would use "automatic", but I am not wholly sure. Hope natives are coming soon.

Rufiaa said:

hello fellow forumers!

I'm reviving this thread to present the following question:

Do we say 'automatic e-mail' or 'automated e-mail' ?

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It would be automatic email, although the more common terms would by auto-replies or auto-responses. Automated email sounds like a large and complex process using many automatic machines to send an email. The production of cars is automated (for the most part). The distribution of bulk or spam email is automatic.

airportzombie said:

It would be automatic email, although the more common terms would by auto-replies or auto-responses. Automated email sounds like a large and complex process using many automatic machines to send an email. The production of cars is automated (for the most part). The distribution of bulk or spam email is automatic.

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Thanks, airportzombie.

Andygc said:

Given that an automated gate opens automatically

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I think there is a difference and I think this is the key to the difference. Something automatic just happens without any thought -- it does its job. Automated includes some kind of mechanical/electronic system that takes the place of a human being and uses logic and decision making controls to decide what to do next.

If you trip an optical sensor and a door opens, that's automatic. It doesn't know you and doesn't know why you're there and doesn't know how it happened and doesn't make a decision, it just responds automatically to a sensor.

An automated immigration gate has taken the human out of the loop and replaced their logic with some electronic logic. It doesn't automatically open because it probably wouldn't be doing its job if it did that. It has to look at your documents and look at whatever other input you give it and decide whether it should pass you through or possibly hold you for a human to come talk to you and ask you further questions. That decision process is automated (by replacing humans with devices, at least initially) but it's not automatic, because there is no guarantee it's automatically going to let you through no matter what you do.

It's automatic. No intervention is required. If the passport is valid for the passenger the gate opens. If the passport is not valid the gate does not open and a red light comes on.

It's automated. No intervention is required. If the passport is valid for the passenger the gate opens. If the passport is not valid the gate does not open and a red light comes on.

The answer to the OP remains that both are used by native English speakers and it doesn't matter which is used.

An afterthought. Car gearboxes have been automated. My Audi's 7-speed S tronic gearbox processes data far more complicated than the data processed by a passport and fingerprint scanner in an airport. It's called an "automatic gearbox".