I think these can be some very dangerous questions to ask. I think asking these questions kill people. Cars kill a lot of people today, and I believe self driving cars will kill fewer people. -I mean the idiot on the road in front of me obviously doesn't know how to drive- I think a computer could do a better job than him. The problem is, these questions focus on the dangerous of self driving cars, not the benefits. With self driving cars, ambulances will be able to better coordinate a path to the hospital, cars, computers can react faster than humans (so in the unavoidable accident of a deer running out in the road, a computer could break faster than the human). And trucks could run at night when there is less traffic. I believe self driving cars will be safer than humans, and we need to adapt them earlier. About 30,000 people are killed via cars every year. I think self driving cars will be able to reduce this to significantly, To half to or one third of the current rate. That means for each year we don't have self driving cars, we effectively squash 15,000 people we could have otherwise saved. Now I know, that we don't replace all the cars each year, but I believe our legal wrangling, irrational concerns, and fears are holding up adaption of life saving technology. We need to think of self driving cars as an extension of the airbag and seatbelt safety system.
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Thank you so much for both your very nice replies. I am actually not against self driving cars, like you rightly state there are a lot of benefits to them with safety, cost and even carbon emissions to name but a few. This poll is just about the moral dilemma facing the decision making of the AI. My poll is also far removed from a real scientific poll, it is just to illustrate the point. A human driver will most probably not even have the time to calculate and react on the possibilities given, and might swerve out to save an animal and in the process kill a human.