They Live in a World controlled by Programs, but Know Nothing about Programming

Note the spelling here. Program uses American spelling. while Programming uses English spelling. Both are verbs, denoting an activity.

Because Computers were invented in England, and Programming them was invented by Ada Lovelace (who had a programming language named after her).

Computer Scientists moved to America after WWII as part of the brain drain then. And after that Computers were developed there (especially Software) - at an incredibly rapid pace. The spelling became American also.

Britain (and the British Empire) was forgotten.