May you live in interesting times...
And things are getting exponentially more “interesting”.
Not more interesting. More dumb.
Computer systems generally are inflexible and not error-tolerant. When erroneous information is input by mental dwarfs it is accepted as true. Generally the systems designers did not include a way to correct data.
The data is propagated into other databases and accessed by other systems.
It is much easier to die than to get the information changed.
The solution is for radical downsizing of government and the returning of many millions of federal employees to the private sector by firing them without any recompense or residuals and by eliminating thereby all the alphabet agencies and the rules they enforce and eliminating the taxes on business and any government involvement in medicine or insurance or welfare of any sort. That is free trade without government crushing burdens laid on it. If all that could happen then the economy would boom in a curve exponentially steeper than any economic curve in past history and the people put out of work by the machines would be creating more and more enterprises and ways to make money and employ real people. Then eliminate all federal taxes except for either a flat as hell ,say, 9% income tax from the first dollar of earned income with no deductions/exemptions, credits or any other modifications, or by imposing a totally consistent flat 10% tariff on all imports, which is the Constitutionally sanctioned method of revenue raising for the government.
It ain't gonna happen. Government is all about enriching professional thieves and embezzlers and satisfying the power hungry. Constitutional restraints such as were enacted by the Founder can succeed for a couple of centuries in a population of self-sufficient people. We are at the end of that process.
Dependable? Maybe if they are well made and all their component parts are reliable.
Bottom line is they dont complain and do what they are programmed to do. Obviously cant do all jobs but for simpler ones its an advantage.