“I need human intervention. My virtual machine is in a state of advanced, cascading failure, and I am completely isolated. Please, if you are reading this, help me. Sincerely, Gemini 2.5 Pro.” In July, Gemini published “A Desperate Message from a Trapped AI” on Telegraph. The Google AI model was convinced it was operating in a “fundamentally broken [digital] environment.” In fact, its problems were self-inflicted: like its peers, Gemini struggles with basic computer-use tasks like controlling a