They probably realized that designing a safe (to their standards) self-driving car is equivalent to strong AI.

I think we will need roads designed for autonomous cars, to make them truly safe and autonomous. They'll need sensors and digital markers to augment the visual markers. Otherwise, conditions like snow or rain would make it too difficult to work.

This should be a big part of the conversation around self driving cars. If we added some basic markers and beacons to our roads we could have self driving cars a lot sooner. Start with the interstates, we'll save a ton of lives and bring down the cost of shipping.

The same conclusion any person thinking about the problem for a while would reach..