[nl]

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but this is a bad comment.

some prominent figures in AI/ML are saying we are due for another "AI winter" since it's being oversold again.

"Some say...". Name one.

We may have a Gartner style "trough of disillusionment", but a 1990's style AI Winter is unlikely. It works too well in too many valuable areas for the money to go away.

technically Google is kind of saying they can tentatively pass the Turing Test with phones

Could you show us where they claim that? That goes well beyond any statement I've heard Google make, and into the kinds of breathless claims click-bait blogs have tried to make.

car decked out with extra sensors and 360 LIDAR cannot detect a simple stop sign with mud on it

Do you have a specific example of that? I did Google, and I couldn't fine anything.

Most examples I've seen handle occulted road signs pretty well. There are of course adversarial examples which are an interesting case, but mud causing a failure like this is surprising to me.