Or even just go back before humans existed. Circular time loop paradoxes have never been a problem so far, so why not just remove humans from the equation altogether?
The one aspect of this episode that I actually liked was the whole “skynet is just a young AI growing up quickly” bit. Through the eyes of the shrink, we’ll hopefully learn more about what the motivation of Skynet as a character is. Why does it wanna kill humans? Why does it launch the nukes? At what point does it decide the world would be a better place without humans? Was it ever programmed to protect humans at all, and then it just went wrong somewhere? Or was it programmed by Shirley Manson to kill all humans in the first place?
Also, does it want to live? Cuz if it doesn’t, it should just nuke the planet at during the cold war, and get it all over with. Sure Skynet will never get built, but humans will be all gone, too.
Hopefully all this will be answered before the show gets canned by FOX.