Although most people use the terms "autonomous" and "automated" interchangeably, it is safe to assume that they are, in fact, different. As the concept of the mind flourishes, the term "autonomous" for having the ability to extend themselves from what they are exposed to, and the study of computers and computer science brings out the question of autonomy [1]. Throughout the remainder of this essay, the main discussion will follow how these terms are meant for different things and their commonalities.
As the term autonomous is used to define what a mind is, the reversed version of this statement by using the symmetric property should also be considered authentic. That version of the phrase can be succinctly stated as "if any species holds the properties of the mind, they should also be autonomous" [1]. What is meant by this statement is that they are codependent. As the mind cannot exist without being autonomous, a species or a thing cannot act autonomously without having a mind. The mind experiences all the input that it is presented with and exceeds beyond that data by changing the world around it without any interference from any outside resource. This is one of the leading aspects that separate these terms from each other. Automated systems may not be self-automated as an external mind exists elsewhere that intervenes with their workings and program them to act automated. On the other hand, autonomous systems are self-sufficient systems that act according to their own.
In order to dive further down into the concept of interference, one of the main divergence points between these two concepts; looking into the computer and exploring its limits of computation may bring some more clarity. Turing'sTuring's initial concepts on computation showed that anything represented could be computed with a computer [2]. Furthermore, Donald Knuth argued that the field of computer science studies what can be automated. From these two statements, if the rule of transitivity is applied, it would suggest the idea that every automation needs to be based on a representation. As computers only function in the representation domain, an automated system's workflow also needs to exist in this domain. Within this context, the term automated seems like repeating a pattern of previously defined action by itself without any external interference. Automated systems can be reduced to patterns of representations that are inputted into computable systems, meaning they could mimic actions crafted by the things having a mind. They can be considered loops in the sense of repeating an existing behavior, whereas, indeed, autonomous systems are capable of extending this and creating new patterns by themselves.
An exciting approach to this question could be handling these terms in different uses, even within different bodies. Thinking of how AI handles these concepts in so-called intelligent appliances, it is shown that the fundamental difference between automated and autonomous things, generally, is the degree of human intervention. As a basic example, an automated car does not have the intelligence or independence an autonomous car has. It may self-drive and follow orders, given that it has a pre-determined navigational path and knowledge of traffic patterns and rules. However, it cannot act freely and will require human interaction for decision-making.
On the other hand, a truly autonomous car would decide on destination and route as well as control within the lanes. Human intervention can be considered the species with a mind designing and structuring these actions by itself. In contrast, an automated car is thought and follows these directives inputted by a mind.
It can be seen that this metaphor of cars is also applicable in the case of autonomous and automated systems in general. Although the concepts of autonomous and automated have their differences fundamentally, they are also related to the concept of interference. Autonomous beings can self-govern and extend themselves, whereas automated systems are just a "representation of the autonomous" concept following the coded behaviors in a pattern by themselves as instructed.
Nevertheless, these differences may not be preserved linguistically; even within the profession of cognitive science from its aspects of computer science and philosophy, the broad misuse and confusion will drown slight differences of meaning.
[1] Bozşahin, C. (2022). What is mind? And why do we talk about the computer when we talk about it in Cognitive Science
[2] Turing, A. M. (1950). Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind 59, 433–460.