Causal Stories

Story 133

Alice and Zoe work for the same company. They work in different rooms and both of them sometimes need to access the central computer of the company. Unbeknownst to everybody, if two people are logged in to the central computer at the same time, an empty email is immediately sent from the central computer to a non-existent email address. One day, Alice logs in to the central computer at 9 am. The same day, Zoe logs in at 9:30 am, when Alice is already logged in. Immediately, an empty email is sent from the central computer to a non-existent email address.

Question

Did Zoe cause an empty email to be sent from the central computer to a non-existent email address?

Majority Answer: Yes

Answer distribution over 25 people:

P(Yes): 0.68 P(No): 0.32

Is Ambiguous: False

Factor

These are the factors and their attributes present in this story.

Action Omission: Action

Agent Awareness: Unaware

Causal Structure: Conjunctive

Time: Late Cause