Well it depends, SQL is most of the times used for supporting data for some host languages like c, c++, java, php, c# and others. Well I have not worked with much technologies.. but if you are using following combinations then here is my point of view:
SQL with C / C++ : Commit Required
SQL with Java : Not Required
SQL with C# : Not Required
SQL with PHP : Not Required
And it also depends which SQL you are using. It would also depend from different flavors of SQL like Oracle SQL, SQL Server, SQLite, MySQL etc...
When you are using Oracle SQL in its console, like Oracle 11g, Oracle 10g etc... COMMIT is required.
And as far as corruption of table and data is concerned. YES it happens, I had a very bad experience with it. So, if you pull out your wire or something while you are updating in your table, then you might end up with a massive disaster.
Well concluding, I will suggest you to do commit.