[sukilot]

Since the digital age started, aka when CPU was invented. Rebooting and erasing all rewritable memory gets the system into a known good state.

[jpindar]

Lots of embedded systems reboot themselves when they get into some unknown state. It's the safest thing to do. Microcontrollers are designed to do it automatically in some cases.

People generally don't notice because the system doesn't beep or display a boot message (if it even has a display).