Explain the concept of automatic type conversion in programming languages.

Implicit type conversion or type coercion is the process where a compiler or interpreter automatically converts a value from one type to another to make an operation valid.

In C/C++, this often occurs during arithmetic operations with different types, for example, when adding an int and a double, the int value is automatically converted to double.

Example:

int a = 5;
double b = 3.2;
double c = a + b; // a is automatically converted to double

Automatic conversion simplifies code but requires caution to avoid data loss or unexpected results.