![]() She ended up administering a poison meant for killing prisoners on death row, and is now on trial for reckless homicide.ĭon’t panic after all! Hawaiians are told to ignore the warning of a missile threat in January 2018. ![]() She wanted anti-anxiety medication for a patient. Two years ago, in a hospital in Tennessee, a nurse clicked to order the wrong drug from an electronic medication cabinet (like a vending machine for pills). Err on that first nudge, and the consequences can be amplified far out of proportion to the initial mistake. When things do go wrong, it can seem as if we’ve pushed the first domino in a long run and then turned away, trusting the dominoes will fall neatly. In our almost-automated age, we tend to be asked to do our bit at the beginning of any enterprise, before a million digital processes occur quickly, incomprehensibly, out of sight. “Seek immediate shelter,” the message read, “this is not a drill.” Not a drill, no: an inaccurate click, later tracked back to one computer, one drop-down menu, one government employee who was a few pixels off in their aim. ![]() In January 2018, an extraordinary clerical error led to a million Hawaiians being texted the news that their destruction by ballistic missile was imminent. Back in March 2015, a single misplaced digit (15 degrees 19.8 minutes east, entered into a cockpit computer, instead of 151 degrees 9.8 minutes east) led to a passenger jet bound from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur landing in Melbourne. Miracle tech! Unimaginable automation! And so much of it conditional on an accurate animal prod at the outset, a finger landed correctly on a keyboard, a thumb touching the right quarter-inch of screen, a mouse button clicked just so. It’s a hybrid era that presumably won’t last for long, and in which we’ve come to rely on code and algorithms to handle many of our affairs, though usually with a human hand setting everything in train. We live in curious times, part-digital, part-manual. Luigi Rimonti’s car in Rom, Germany, after he followed his satnav, which he thought was taking him to Rome, Italy. Rimonti would be in Pomerania for the better part of a week, recuperating. “Rom,” it said, identifying this location as a tiny hamlet in the hills of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Germany, due east from Amsterdam and a good 600 miles from the Italian border. The road sign he had been trying to read was on the ground beside him. He later told his sons: “ Pensavo di essere morto.” I thought I was dead. Rimonti lay still, shaken and badly injured, too hurt to stand. The car had also immobilised itself and would later be towed. His suitcases and belongings were now trapped in the boot of the car, which had been crunched shut by the collision. When the car struck the very road sign he’d been trying to read, it jolted, and Rimonti was able to tumble clear. ![]() Struck by the open door of the car, Rimonti was knocked over and dragged along. When he clambered out, the better to read the nearest road sign, his car began to roll backwards. Rimonti had stopped his car on a slight slope. Luigi Rimonti was surprised to be told by the smooth, computerised voice of the satnav that he’d shortly be arriving at his destination.
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