I think the problem of self-driving cars is that the driving problem isn't entirely sealed and success requires a long string of successes (most of which seem t

I think the problem of self-driving cars is that the driving problem isn't entirely sealed and success requires a long string of successes (most of which seem trivial). I think the situation with language is that it too isn't entirely sealed from other parts of reality but here each immediate success is judged a victory. A lot of self-driving process are straightforward, "just" adaptive control. Minimally self-driving vehicles have existed for a long time. Corner cases are the problem - distinguish a newspaper floating into an area from a load of bricks falling off a truck in front of you, etc. For language, a problem to consider for a language using system is "talking a person through" a task. The thing about that is it involves two entities sharing a common model of reality and each updating their model as they listen to the other. And here I think corner cases of reality are basically as likely to show up.