[dylan604]

The sad thing is that based on your telling of it, if it detects a small child in a weird costume in the middle of the road but doesn't recognize it as a small child that it's not at least recognizing that something is in the road that should not be regardless of what it is. That should be the minimum in recognizing the road and then recognizing any object within the road.

[toast0]

This approach is all backwards anyway. You don't need to detect obstacles per se, you need to detect safe conditions to proceed.

Clear roadway is safe. Following behind a detected vehicle is conditionally safe.

Cow in the road? Not clear road way, not a detected vehicle. Does not match any safe conditions, so do not proceed.

This approach is why you see so many reports of Waymos stopped somewhere that's outside traffic rules. But it's so much better to stop safely in situations where it's not really needed than to not stop in situations where it is needed.