Put people in charge and not the computers

The recent fiasco that resulted in early prisoner release vividly points out the need for everyone responsible for computer applications to use a reliable system to verify results, such as a manual check.

Those of us in existence before the proliferation of computers into every aspect of life knew how to do things by hand. For important tasks we had an independent check made.

Errors could still occur, but knowing how to do things manually we could often spot mistakes just by the reasonableness of the results. Today apparently many people do not bother to check computer software, and either do not know how to do things by hand or don't think it is necessary.

To those people, I have a suggestion: Ask for help from the army of seniors out there that can still remember how to do things without computers. Many would probably be glad to volunteer, if budgets are the issue.

Putting off corrections until software can be fixed is letting computer technology be in charge. People should be in charge, not computers.

This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 8:48 AM with the headline "Put people in charge and not the computers."