Any automatic system responds to triggers.
Yes of course... but of it's own volition or in response to an external trigger,
not in response to
human actions. Indeed, many safety systems are automatic for situations where a human is
unable to take actions, such as a personal flotation device that auto-inflates when it hits salt water.
Otherwise how would it work? Are you mistaking automatic for artificial intelligence?
Not unless you're going to argue that machine guns and handbrakes are governed by AI...
What would you class as some examples of an automatic system?
As well as the PFD above...
My Climatronic system that alters the fan speed and airflow temperature to maintain whatever cabin temperature I set. I don't tell it to go warmer or blow slower, it just responds to the temperature changes. Arguably that's just programming though, which is technically automated rather than automatic.
ABS - You apply the brake, but that does not define when the ABS does or does not kick in. The trigger for ABS is something not initiated or controlled by a human.
Same for airbag deployment - The human doesn't (usually) choose to heavily impact the front of the car, yet that's the trigger.
Also, weird as it may seem, self-loading firearms are actually a very good example - The cycling of spent cases and fresh rounds is not operated by a separate control. This is regarded as an automatic operation, as the pulling of the trigger only trips the mechanism to fire the round - The reload mechanism requires the round to actually fire in order to cycle, which is why a misfire will not cycle the action even though I
have pulled the trigger, and why a cooked-off round will still cycle the action even though I
have not pulled the trigger - The two are technically independent, with the latter only triggered (pun intended) by the former.
Like the firing mechanism, your brake-hold cannot deploy unless you press the brake pedal to trip it.... (I hope)...? It's part and parcel of that same mechanism, just as an optional extra process.
An automated action is one that occurs without direct input. You're applying the brakes to stop the car. The car then automatically holds the brakes as a result, without you asking it to by, for example, pressing a separate button.
You've already pressed that seperate button - It's the one that turns the hold mechanism on.
More importantly, you can turn it on and off whenever you like, so you pressing the brake decides exactly when it will and won't activate.
If the car can, in response to whatever other reasons or external triggers, decide
not to deploy the hold mechanism regardless of what you have pressed,
then it would be automatic. But as is, you're pressing the brake knowing that it will also trip the brake-hold latch.
We can pick holes in various aspects of the English language until the cows come home but this one is fairly clear-cut, I think.
It is fairly, yet people are posting definitions and then contradicting them in their subsequent assertions.
...you appear to be conflating a mechanism that's automatic (ie, one which can keep operating in the same state after an input) with an entirely automated process (ie, a car deciding when to apply the brakes for you without any input), and claiming that only the latter constitutes being called "automatic".
Automatic is something that happens without direct human input.
Automated is where a machine undertakes a role that was previously done by the human.
No, I'm not conflating them and nor am I confusing them.
If we follow your logic to it's ultimate conclusion, then there aren't any processes in a car that we can really consider automatic, because they were all ultimately the result of you getting in and turning the key.
Do modern cars not have alarms, then?
Ultimate results of one action is not the same as a direct result of one.
Hence the machine gun analogy. All you do is squeeze the trigger....that triggers an automatic mechanism which releases the firing pin, fires the round, cycles the bolt to eject the cartridge and load a new one, etc, and that cycle continues, and doesn't stop until you release the trigger.
As described above - That is inaccurate. It's also another example of ultimate results, in this case a sequence of results, which are initiated by one action but depend solely upon the preceeding result in order to trigger rather that each being a direct result of human input.
There are firearms that cycle the firing mechanism and operate the reloading mechanism all through one user-input action, but they are not automatic or even semi-automatic. A Gatling gun would actually be one such example, as it will cycle all those mechanisms without you even needing ammo in it.
So going back to the original post which started all this....using an auto hold process does not mean you aren't ultimately in control of what the vehicle is doing, but that doesn't mean that "auto hold" is somehow a misnomer.
Actually my original remark was about the auto-handbrakes (and these days E-brakes), not auto-hold.
But to use
your own definition, the auto-hold cannot operate unless you both conciously enable it and then later depress the brake pedal, thus requiring direct action from you to trigger it, and thus in no way automatic. That makes it a misnomer.
And I'm sorry if you think I'm being obtuse, I'm not. I honestly didn't think that such a small distinction required explaining, hence my frustrated reply.
I make a lot of effort to choose my words quite precisely because people so often do make those distinctions (and frequently incorrectly) which result in perspectives being at odds.