Alterations of genetic information are not the only source of noise in the system. In organic life, enzymes have evolved to increase the probability of chemical reactions that increase the fitness of the organism. However, the metabolic system is not perfect. Undesired chemical reactions do occur, and desired reactions sometimes produce undesired by-products. The result is the generation of molecular species that can ``gum up the works'', having unexpected consequences, generally lowering the fitness of the organism, but possibly raising it.
In the digital system, an analogue of metabolic (non-genetic) errors can be introduced by causing the computations carried out by the CPU to be probabilistic, producing erroneous results at some low frequency. For example, any time a sum or difference is calculated, the result could be off by some small value (e.g. plus or minus one). Or, if all bits are shifted one position to the left or right, an appropriate error would be to shift by two positions or not at all. When information is transferred from one location to another, either in the RAM memory or the CPU registers, it could occasionally be transferred from the wrong location, or to the wrong location. While flaws do not directly cause genetic changes, they can cause a cascade of events that result in the production of an offspring that is genetically different from the parent.