Automation is machines taking over work people once did by hand. Factory automation, automation of the process, fear of automation.
It has removed and created work in every wave since the first, and which jobs it takes is more about how routine a task is than how skilled — routine work of every level goes first. The word was coined by a Ford executive in the 1940s. Note automate, automated; and that automaton is the older word, from the Greek for acting of itself.
1nounautomationMachines taking over work people once did by hand.
“Automation has replaced many factory jobs, as robots now do the welding and painting.”
automation is a mechanising of work.
Automation was coined by Delmar Harder, a Ford executive, in the 1940s, from automatic or automaton, from Greek automatos, acting of itself.
Proto-Indo-European
*men-
New Latin
automaticus
English
automatic
English, today
automation
Built from
From automatic + -ion. From automatic + ion or automaton + ion; coined by a Ford Executive Vice President, Delmar S. Harder, in the 1940s. automatic Borrowed from New Latin automaticus, from la-cla. New Latin automaticus, from la-cla automatum (“automaton”) + -icus, from Ancient Greek αὐτόματον, neuter of αὐτόματος (“self-moving, moving of oneself, self-acting, spontaneous”), from αὐτός (“self, myself”) + μέμαα (“to wish eagerly, strive, yearn, desire”). The original pronunciation, apparently with stress on the second syllable, was after the ultimate Greek base.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA