Responsibility was too important to be entrusted to anyone. In galactic civilization, building a single passage required a safety assessment by an engineer, a cost calculation by an accountant, the consent of a citizens' committee, and a forecast by artificial intelligence. Every decision carried countless signatures. If the outcome was good, it was an achievement of civilization as a whole. If the outcome was bad, no single signature was a sufficient cause. No one made a decision alone. Responsibility could not be assigned to any one person.
After the Zero-Delay Catastrophe, an investigation began to determine who was responsible. The initial isolation order had been issued by the management AI, but erroneous observational data and approved safety regulations had also contributed. The person who made the error and the device that executed the order could be identified. Yet none of them could be recorded as the cause of the entire catastrophe. Subsequently, the term “responsibility” was replaced by “causal contribution.” The proportion of responsibility for the accident was distributed among all relevant institutions and regulations. The contribution of the person who issued the initial order was 0.000004 percent. The percentages added up to 100 percent. There was no way to punish 100 percent. Responsibility disappeared after being calculated precisely.
The word “responsibility” was eventually prohibited in official investigations. The reason given was that seeking a person to hold responsible reduced complex causes to the malice of a single individual and obstructed institutional improvement. Investigators no longer asked who had done wrong, but recorded only the conditions that had produced the outcome. Investigations became fairer, but no one was punished. With no punishment, no one feared making the next decision.