Well, given the example in the article, any human with functioning vision would be able to identify that stop sign. A driverless car with inadequate detection w

Well, given the example in the article, any human with functioning vision would be able to identify that stop sign. A driverless car with inadequate detection would run through the intersection without stopping. I'd say that's a pretty big deal. I think the problem with the driver-less car is that it doesn't have goal-oriented general perception like human beings do. Humans filter the world through goals. The world is interpreted as a set of affordances and threats to your goals, your brain is predisposed with distinguishing the two. As it stands, this is not how driver-less cars are being designed, they are being designed to specifically recognize the presence and content of street features like signs and other moving bodies. A human driver might see a tall parked car with a big gap in front, and recognize a pedestrian affordance which he should steer clear of in case somebody pops out. The way I see people talk about driver-less cars, this "common sense" type of judgement would have to be deliberately integrated.