“(computer science) An abrupt halting of operations by a computer due to a malfunction, allowing the users or operators of the computer little or no time to minimize its effects.”

Perfect description of what’s happening right now, as seen through the lens of this NY Times article: which is basically saying that the economic problems we’re beginning to see right now have to do with handing over major aspects of the financial systems’ control mechanisms over to automated algorithms and computerized processes. It features this Unaboomber manifesto/Matrix-outtake quote too

But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. … Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.