This scenario should never be possible.<p>An autonomous vehicle should never be traveling fast enough to not be able to stop for any objects that could potentially jump out in front of it.<p>If there is a blind spot, slow the vehicle down. If there is a crosswalk, slow down.<p>What about animals though? I often see squirrels, geese, and deer in the middle of the road. Does the vehicle honk the horn and inch forward? Geese are dumb and will stand in the middle of the road until you scare them or they decide they want to cross, squirrels will actually challenge the vehicle many times.<p>Someone will die from an autonomous vehicle eventually, there's no way to prevent that just because of the odds of some fluke happening. If someone trips or purposely jumps in front of an autonomous vehicle then there is nothing that could have been done, don't kill the driver for the pedestrians mistake.
<i>"When robot cars must kill, there are good reasons why designers should not be the ones picking victims."</i><p>There are also good reasons for them to be picking victims, in the case presented, switching control to the driver may increase the chance of both the child and the driver dying. The designers of roads made the decision anyway, roads for motor vehicles could all have big sidewalls and be up on stilts and never be a threat to pedestrians or wildlife, if we wanted them to. It would be very expensive to do this, so we accept the deaths.