Dani
One could define automation as the existence of a computer between the pilot's command and the control, be it flight controls or engine or navigation...etc...
That definition -which is by no means complete - therefore includes everything that has been included in an aircraft cockpit or systems and takes the pilots away from a "direct" link to the desired information or command.
As for the FBW, whether one could define different levels of protection or not, and through what means, the fact is that a demand by the crew goes through a set of computing steps before the result goes to the concerned system. (forget the loops, for simplicity's sake)
The old A-vs-B argument only lies on definitions of "soft" vs "hard" protection, but it becomes more and more a dispute on semantics ( See the tail strike protection of the T7 for instance ).
Another dispute is about moving/not moving T/Ls. To that one I'd just comment that the BA T7 which managed a glide into Heathrow had both throttles firewalled, which somehow proves that were not indicative of the engines'output...
I'm not familiar with the architecture of the Embraer products but the Airbus philosophy has been adopted by Dassault and now by Bombardier on their C series...and studied closely by the Russians. (Could mean something...).
All the above tell me that the level of automation reached by the modern airliners seems quite wide-spread and a simple quick look at the incident/accident statistics will show that the level of safety the air transport industry has achieved through automation is on another planet altogether compared with the pre-jet era.
Another quick look at the accident statistics of jet airliners also show that the last of the classically flight-controlled airplanes, the DC-9/MD8xxx has a safety record that can't compare with the more modern ones in the same period...(Might say something, too...)
To illustrate my point and although I don't agree with all the arguments presented, this is a paper from the USAF about cockpit automation and its "costs"
Identifying And Mitigating The Risks Of Cockpit Automation