Indeed, but you have bug-safety law around the world which incorporates something like :

"If there is a typo, error, fraud, crime etc. a contract is considered invalid or the part of the contract that is flawed"

With software bugs you have something similar :

> NO WARRANTY. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED TO YOU “AS IS” AND “WITH ALL FAULTS.”

Who decides what a typo is?

"Oh, that contact for 1000 dollars is really 10 dollars because they 'missed' a decimal place. You still have to uphold your part though."

Corruption of judges can be a problem in that space and that is in part what this is attempting to solve. A lofty goal, maybe even impossible, but certainly worth the time to try.

I actually found a typo of a 100x magnitude in a Washington, D.C. law about ten years ago. Submitted it, and it was administratively adjusted. No need to even take it back for another vote. I believe is happens with much greater frequency than anyone outside the business of maintaining legal documents imagines.

[even had a typo in the first publish of this comment!]

Sounds like a story worth telling; details?

Just realized someone actually read my comment!

Situation was basically a table rendered in prose format. I can’t recall the precise verbiage, but it read something like: In 2015, the requirement shall be 0.05%. In 2016, the requirement shall be 0.7. In 2017, the requirement shall be 0.09%

Very subtle typo which, had it been treated as The Truth of The Text would have bankrupted anyone attempting to adhere to the regulation.

> administratively adjusted

That sounds like a terrible amount of power to give someone without a vote.

for obvious fixes, that’s not actual power: They could not do that if the correct answer weren’t obvious.

If I offered a new car for 10€ — obviously it should have been 10k€, so others cannot expect me to fulfil that (ask your local police).

If I had offered it for 8.5k€ and suddenly claim it should have been 10k€, it’s far from obvious that this was a mere error, so I’d likely have to stand for it.

If I offered a used car for 10€, the case becomes murky.

This is hacker news. If this was some code rather than in meatspace and you trusted a single client to modify a turning complete config file for everyone else you'd call it a massive security vulnerability. I don't understand how having humans involved changes that. Yes, they probably have good intentions but has that assumption ever worked out in human history? If it's not used today for something nefarious, it will be used tomorrow.

> This is hacker news

Which is why people don't understand basic human institutions and are surprised when they run into issues trying to re-invent from scratch

Grace Hopper said it best 'The most dangerous phrase in the language is, "We've always done it this way."'

A legislative body is a conflict resolution mechanism, and one that is basically in the business of writing the code of law (literally). For something to be considered a typo, there must be negligible conflict over that interpretation. If not, the legislative body addresses it again or it’s handled by the judiciary. The legal register who maintains the official version of the text works at the behest of the legislative body. These things are not occurring without supervision.

I UPvoted your comment.

Aside from everything. In writing a contract, it's very common to write price with numbers and letters in brackets next to them. E.g. 1000$ ( one thousand dollars ), exactly because typos happen.

The decision what a typo is is made by the parties, in case of dispute then by several courts ( based on the evaluation of the contract ). That's at least in continental law system.

There's a way to specify a 3rd party court ( non-corrupted one, called arbitrage ) which can solve disputes for that contract.

Corruption of judges problem is being fixed also in several ways. Usually decisions in high courts are decided by 3 judges ( again continental law ) and sometimes a jury ( prevailing in anglo-saxon law system ). Also there is a way to appeal the decision of the court to a higher court(s).

It's impossible to corrupt a 3rd party judge (shouldn't all courts be third parties?), or 3 judges? I agree it's the best system we have today, but it won't be tomorrow.

There are relatively few cases where $1000 and $10 are both reasonable numbers. It should be pretty obvious to both parties from context which is the 'correct' interpretation.

To a rational person without ulterior motives yes, but remember in my country "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause" means "Go ahead and take papers (cash) from peoples cars without warrants, and then the burden is on them to prove they obtained it legally"

I certainly distrust the American legal system enough to use something like this in the future.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, seems like a very prudent and informed sentiment to me.