[nl]

I don't think that's entirely true.

There are many tasks where the current levels of accuracy are sufficient (eg, registration plate recognition), and as recognition slowly improves more and more tasks become possible.

Pete Warden has written extensively on this topic[1]. His "hipster detection" algorithm is quite inaccurate by any conventional measurement, but is accurate enough to be useful.

[1] http://petewarden.com/2014/07/31/how-to-get-computer-vision-...