I'm not sure how you take that from the original article. My 4 year old would drive that course in an automatic car, if only he could reach the pedals. Heck, he's done harder things at Lego land.
I wouldn't let him loose on the road though.
I think, at the very least, the guardrails would have to deterministic, ideally with super human senses, for people to accept self driving cars on the road.