automaton vs non-player character

automaton

noun
  • A person who acts like a machine or robot, often defined as having a monotonous lifestyle and lacking in emotion. 

  • A machine or robot designed to follow a precise sequence of instructions. 

  • A toy in the form of a mechanical figure. 

  • A formal system, such as a finite-state machine or cellular automaton. 

non-player character

noun
  • An individual who does not think for themselves nor makes their own decisions. 

  • A character in a role-playing game or computer game whose actions are not controlled by a player. 

How often have the words automaton and non-player character occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )