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11 November 2015

Corruption

The global data store has flagged a man for execution, and his pleas of innocence have done nothing to dissuade his executioners. His data has clearly been corrupted, being completely inaccurate and often non-sensical, yet he will die nonetheless. Mere moments before the act, a courier casually arrives with hard data backups proving said man to be no more than an ordinary, law-abiding citizen. The police apologize for the inconvenience and release him.

In previous stories I have focused on who might be culpable for a system malfunction, particularly in the case where someone suffers significant harm. However, in this story no harm occurred, although it certainly reared its head. I thought less of culpability and more of potential. The more all-encompassing and powerful a system’s design, the more dangerous its flaws. Do the benefits always outweigh the risks? I suspect they do. Surely, the previous scenario is pure fiction.