I feel like trying to convince people to use the term 'automaton', when referring to devices that look similar to humans but are non-biological, is a feeble venture. The term 'robot' is just so ingrained in our society to describe a humanoid-like piece of hardware...
Isn't the word 'Android' already invented for that class or organism?
They could be used interchangeably, 'automaton' predates 'android' by a margin, primarily because an 'automaton' doesn't necessarily have to be an electronic device. It could be a water-powered wooden nutcracker. So yes, 'android' is probably the best candidate to describe the 'robots' that the author is referring to.
A roomba is an automaton, but not an android.
Automaton refers to acting on it's own. Android literally means humanlike. Electronics have no bearing on either.
Also true for pretty much every other term I've seen mainstream journalists 'learn'... hack, app, cloud, algorithm...
Best line in the article, the one that convinced me: Robots are things that don’t do useful things. Once they eventually work, we call them what they are, like "dishwasher" or "toaster" or "drone."