At present the A/C does not provide any form of protection when it comes to terrain, it merely provide warnings.
There does not appear to be any easy way to provide terrain protection without taking control away from the pilot (full automation). At the end of the day the aircraft has to land either at airport or otherwise.
A pilot would always have to retain the ability to disengage terrain protection for obvious reasons. In the future it is probably inevitable that machines will be able to fly safer than humans, but until that is possible we must rely on humans with all of their frailties.