The 2013 Proton crash was more similar to the Embraer incident than you might think. Human pilots can sometimes step outside the box and re-learn how to fly but automated guidance systems aren't that flexible.
The Proton crash involved angular velocity sensors -- rotational accelerometers -- installed upside down. It's not that it wanted to fly into the ground, it was that it couldn't fly straight because (from the guidance computer's perspective) it was responding backwards to the behavior commanded by the guidance system. And rockets just don't fly sideways very well.
Watch the direction of thrust from the engines (the Proton, like most rockets, steers by thrust vectoring) in this slowed-down video of the incident: