Person of Interest

The Machine, and later Samaritan — mass-surveillance intelligences that predict violent crime.

Wait for a number. The Machine supplies one social security number at a time and explains nothing — not the reasoning, not whether the person is victim or perpetrator. Two men build their entire working lives around instructions they cannot audit and come, gradually, to trust.

Allocated labour — A system decides what you will do, and people comply — sometimes willingly.

Began as a procedural and turned into the most sustained treatment on television of what it is like to be employed by something you cannot question. Read alongside Daemon, which reaches the same place from the other direction.