Modern life

The phrase “computer says no” now has its own Wikipedia page. The first recorded use dates back to a Stasi-era 1970s East German film segment titled Der Computer Sagt: Nein. However, its idiomatic use arose in 2004 via a series of sketches in Little Britain, each illustrating an example of technology--enabled bureaucratic intransigence, typically flying in the face of common-sense human judgment. It is perhaps the 21st-century equivalent of “jobsworth.” To behavioral scientists, the phrase illustrates something known as “defensive decision-making,” whereby the primary motivation for a decision is not the likely quality of the outcome but the decision-maker’s often unconscious urge to use any available means to offload accountability for his actions.