Yeah... I got it.
I think the intent of the starting write up was to describe the situation when a right and powerful (financially) part of the human population is using robots to cut the World's population down to manageable size - let's say 50 million people. Then make robots handle all the production of goods and services.
So if you ask me, the original write up had some inherent flaws.
If they ever sensed fear, then only the Almighty would have to intervene to save the human bosses
How can they possibly "sense" what's going on inside the human mind? They can deduce it based on some clues. So yeah, the narrator defining colonel as human and the sentinel smelling "fear" are contradictory. As it is impossible for a story narrator not to know what is he talking about. Rather it shouldn't be possible. And if it is diverges than it is a logical flaw.
Or well, let's forgive the author. To me, these write-ups are nothing more than a trigger for one's imagination and at the end of the day, I usually change the beginning to fit my continuation. )))