I'm probably closer to agreeing with Woz than not, despite all the apparent progress self-driving cars have made. Remember the old saw about how "getting to 90% is easy, it's the second 90% that gets you"? I expect this is going to be the case for self-driving cars, in spades.<p>Building a self-driving car that can drive on limited access highways, or low-speed city streets, mostly in daylight, in good weather conditions, on mostly flat terrain is clearly doable. Making that car drive on snow and ice, in mountains, at night, in a blizzard? My hunch is that this is going to take a lot longer.<p>We'll almost certainly get there eventually, but at least w/r/t a fully autonomous self-driving car, I'm not expecting one anytime soon.
From what I've seen a shuttle type autopiloting function is possible. That's where companies need to focus as the first step. I can see where a city can replace all their bus drivers and subway operators. Or a service that picks up people given a fixed route at city street speed. Highway speed is not here yet. Wozniak is right, not yet. But given the speed of progress, it will be here within our lifetime.
I have respect for Steve Wozniak's historical contributions to computing, but they need to be put into perspective. He was an adept tinkerer and hacker, an oldschool geek like many of us. He was never a great technologist and hasn't been actively involved in computing innovation in decades. While I'm personally interested in what he has to say on any number of subjects, his opinion on the state of self-driving cars carries no weight whatsoever. Any number of tech bloggers are more informed than he is on this subject.