The first (harm) is about as mild as it gets, and the second is a common usage.

Webster's 1913:

> 2. Injury done to that which is entitled to respect, reverence, or observance; profanation; infringement; unjust force; outrage; assault.

> We can not, without offering violence to all records, divine and human, deny an universal deluge. - T. Burnet.

It's a bit more poetic a use, but it's not escalatory in the way you suggest.

[EDIT] Further, my point is (and I think that was clear?) that computerization necessarily does these things if you treat the computer as correct and humans as suspect, not that anyone's doing this on purpose.