'Electronic calculation is not the same as wisdom. Confusing them is dangerous'

From Dominic Lawson: I blame computers for this crisis

So we taxpayers are called upon to provide another £100bn or so (no one quite knows, least of all us) – and the cry goes up once again: who is to blame for the banking crisis?

The most obvious answer is: the bankers themselves. On the day that the Government injects yet more cash into Royal Bank of Scotland's smouldering hulk of a balance sheet, perhaps there is some weird patriotic pride to be had in the fact that Newsweek has ignored all the notable American candidates to name Sir Fred Goodwin, chief executive of RBS from 2000 to October 2008 as "The World's Worst Banker".

There are many other candidates for blame, however. The economists' own favourite villain is the former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan. Actually it's "Sir" Alan Greenspan: Gordon Brown made sure that he got a KBE too, before it dawned that the owlish American was not, after all, the world's wisest life-form.

Then there is the nexus between the property business and politicians – the former having speculated colossally on the latter's belief that there were votes to be had in keeping that market inflating into infinity. These are also good people to kick as you contemplate your ever-diminishing pension.

Yet with all these human targets, there is one often overlooked candidate for blame which is not constructed of carbon (and which will not feel any pain when you kick it). This is the silicon microchip. The astonishing growth in the calculating power of computers is a wonderful thing, enabling us to do things we would never have dreamed of even a decade ago. Electronic calculation, however, is not the same thing as wisdom; and there are great dangers in confusing the one with the other.

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