I don't even understand how people can't differentiate autotune from phasers, flangers, atari & telephone sounds, etc.
Autotune is when you are not on tune and it magically makes you on tune. Example T-Pain. But most of Brit's are just for the effects e.g. Gimme More, tell me how could a girl sing like a guy without pitch shift? I can't even. The deeper register would sound natural but it would sound terrible. Or those distortedradio-like voice of britney from Toy Soldier? Remove all those effects and the song wouldn't be the same. It's not their fault if those effects are not possible to be achieve by the human voice. We all have limits, but you can't take it away from them to do this considering it's how they wanted their art to be heard by the world.