Just your annual PSA to remind you that "technical failure" is a really nice cover for a false flag attack.
And James has been fanning the flames of plausibility for it for decades.
The reason why the story has time travel in it is because 10 years later after the machine takover they all failed due to a technical failure caused by the excessive production of new robots depleting essential resources in ways their fancy artificial brains couldn't predict.
A total storm in a teacup, not much worse than the Black Plague or or the last glacial melt for our species.