Legal chalenges are this: the driverless EV ran over someone but what happens is that corporations (often) bribe the judicial parties not charging them with a hit & run even though the victims families want justice for their vehicles killing pedestrians. The only “prevention” is harm reduction (investing into technology that’s able to detect human presence & sensors that activate in pedestian heavy areas stopping the vehicle).
Usually, when it’s a EV (with no human driver behind the wheel): is it still considered a criminal offense if a driverless EV ran over somebody as it just continues driving? In that case it’s mainly rideshare companies (i.e. Uber, Lyft, DiDi, etc) face criminal liability. Regardless, the companies who dispatch EV’s are sued when their vehicles run over somebody and the EV didn’t stop whilst doing so.
It is just a simple OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act loop) that needs to have the decision made for when constraints conflict. Which by definition must decide who dies. The manufacturers have been explicitly clear about that point so that they can doge liability.
That’s like saying a CPU is just a few switches.
What the computer is doing is picking the least bad option with more weight towards the occupant’s survival. But if possible it’s going to pick an option where no one dies.
You wouldn’t charge a human with murder for making the choice between saving themselves or someone else.
And this is ignoring the fact that a self driving vehicle would be in such a situation far less often than humans are.
We are currently charging women for murder because they have had ectopic pregnancies removed. So no, that is not how the laws about murder are currently being applied in the USA.
And yes, I agree that a Turing complete CPU could be just a few dozen transistors. (Or just one depending on how you count ROM)