As the requirement has no real meaning in safety terms
How things change from the original intent. For those interested, here is some historical background . For example I started my first log book in 1951 where both civilian and RAF log books had a column for instrument flying. Under the heading "Instrument Flight" were two columns. One was called "In Flight" and the other "Ground Training." Published instructions on logging stated: "Time spent at the controls while in flight under actual or properly simulated instrument flight conditions, will be recorded` in the "in-flight" column as well as being recorded in the appropriate column 1 to 10.
Time recorded in the column headed "Ground Training" will be that time which is spent in "Link Trainers or other approved ground training devices for instrument flying
. "At the controls" was deemed to be manual flying. Monitoring an autopilot (assuming one was fitted) while in cloud, was never a consideration since there was no specific skill involved.
Pre-war RAF log books were similar, except under the heading "Instrument/Cloud" there were two columns. One was called Dual and the other called Pilot.
In both examples (civilian or military), the proviso being instrument flying was required to be manually flown to be legally logged. Instrument flying on automatic pilot was not counted for purposes of logging instrument time. That was understandable, since the original purpose of including instrument flight time in a log book was meant to be a measure of physical piloting skill
on instruments.
Over the years, State regulators have gone away from the original concept of logging of instrument flying (which was in cloud experience manually flown) and thus worth something in terms of survivability, to a watering down of the original stringent rules. Logging of time on automatic pilot is an example of this. The situation is laughable nowadays where some States even authorise logging of any IFR flight plan and that includes taxiing!
All time by sole reference I take as IFR, but obviously some IFR time can be VMC.
As most simulator instructors will attest, thousands of hours monitoring an autopilot mean very little in terms of equivalent manual instrument flying skills,.