Funny enough most ICs have +ve and -ve on opposite pins on the same end, i.e. pins 1 and 16 on a 16-pin chip. It looks from that pic that the 'inventer' has put +12v voltage on a chip...and that is all.
On the other hand if the wires are connected to the other end the chip won't do anything active as there is no power, all that will happen (if anything) is something passive like a random resistance or one-way current flow through a network of unpowered transistors.
What I would like to know from a Zen point-of-view is if it went faulty how would you know???
Mick