[ineedasername]

Our ability for pattern recognition w/ human faces developed over the course of many thousands of years. People in modern fire fighting gear weren't present through that process. A kid thinking a firefighter is a robot is not the same class of problem. Even kids are good at the type of tasks we're talking about.

[MattGaiser]

People have difficulty distinguishing the individual faces of other races.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect

So at some level it breaks down for us too.

[ineedasername]

Yes and I think its fair to say that a firefighter in full gear is a reasonable place for it to breakdown, and that does does not otherwise indicate a failing in human capability in this area that should make our failure modes in any way whatsoever at the same level or rate as computer models.

[IncRnd]

The cross-race effect is an instance of the ingroup advantage. However, that can't be extended to say that people will classify blacks as primates.