I remember when computer-based (algorithm — based) trading was fist becoming publicly known and a friend of mine and I were talking about it. We made the point that when the market takes a serious dive a computer won’t jump out of a window (as some really did in the Crash of 1929). On the other hand, as you point out, the pressure now falls on the creator of the algorithm.

I think that what has changed has been people’s attitudes about speculative markets since their advent. It is a lesson that has been reinforced several times: to participate in a speculative market is to invite loss. People now recognize that someone losing more than one can afford to lose that way is a forewarned person being excessively foolish.