[DF] "But I'm a (half) angel!"

[Bruno]

We're only "allowed" one improbable assumption? What, are the Sci-Fi police going to come and burn all my Asimov novels now?

This side-conversation started with the discussion of a world-spanning AI system.

But if you decide to ignore the AI system part, it's even more ludicrous that the computer would catch fire/implode/whatever from being presented something outside its parameters.

What actually happens when dumb computers get nonsensical input is one of
a) validation routines reject the input (I refuse to believe!/You must be mistaken, Hal)
b) attempts to process the input and aborts, basically taking extra time to get to a)
c) attempts to process the input and crashes, which is a decidedly non-lethal condition. It can certainly cause an annoying service interruption, but it's not system-death.
d) processes the garbage input and produces garbage output, then continues largely unmoved by the experience.
Q: "Has this thesis ever been done before?"
A: "Coconut."
There may now be lingering coconut-related nonsense in the database that needs cleaning up, but again, this is nonlethal.