[emeijer]

Vision based on visible light doesn't suffer from the problem in the same way as echolocation or lidar, since it is not dependant on observing signals emitted by the observer. I guess very smooth surfaces might act as mirrors, which will probably bring it's own set of difficulties for machines. Anecdotally, I can say my own stereo vision doesn't have big difficulties with most smooth surfaces though :)

[marcosdumay]

I know I have slammed into transparent surfaces because I couldn't see them.

It probably gets worse the higher you go, because there is less grassy people adding marks to them, and less "people are hitting this too much, we'd better reduce that glass size". Birds are famous for getting them wrong.

[bighi]

But bats also use vision based on visible light. I haven't read the article yet, but do they explain about why the bat wouldn't see the building with its eyes?

[Raphmedia]

"researchers can rule out the possibility that the bats were visually confused, because the experiments were done under infrared light, which bats can't see, and so they would have been relying entirely on echolocation."

[Filligree]

It might be nighttime.