When Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was released in 2003, most people saw it as just a movie. But is the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring SF action flick more than just that? Last Thursday, a mysterious phenom afflicted the neighbouring country of Schwarzenegger's homeland, Austria. A Google Maps glitch showed all the preferable routes on Germany's autobahns and highways shut. For drivers who prefer to see what's before through their windshields, all the roads appeared wide and open. But who'd you rather believe - Google Maps or your eyes? As a result, German roads were driven by utter tech chaos.

Our theory? Considering Google has kept mum, we think it's a sign from the future from members of a human group resisting the takeover by machines. The malevolent AI of the Terminator franchise, Skynet - sounding like a cable company that a teenage Elon Musk would have floated - sent out 'terminators', AI entities to kill the future leader of the resistance before the latter could crush the machines. The 2003 Jonathan Mostow-directed film was really a message. Last week, the Google Maps meltdown was a follow-up signal - our future generation telling us to flip the singularity kill switch. But will we lift our heads from our DeepSeek-enabled phones and pay heed? There will be more strange happenings involving tech as warnings. They will be back.