Should your Self Driving Car Kill You?

In my lifetime self driving cars will become practical. I know they exist now, but they still have some issues to work out for mainstream use. Probably one day all vehicles will be self driving, but in between now and then (and perhaps always for vintage cars) there will be a mix of self driven and person driven cars. I know this title seems weird, but this is a question that someone somewhere will have to answer someday. Should your self driving car kill you?

Well allow me to explain that question a bit. By that I don't mean that your car should be allowed to murder you on purpose, or hurt you in any way. I do mean that, in a crash situation, should your car choose to put your life at risk or the other cars occupants at risk? It's a tough decision to make, and I really have no idea how to quantify the value of one persons life against another. Still though, we will be faced with this reality in my\our lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting a downer on self driving vehicles. They would revolutionize and standardize public transit systems, shipping and delivery services, and overall reduce the amount of maintenance and road accidents because you would eliminate human error from the equation. However, machines fail, people will still be driving cars, and natural disasters cause problems.

This has been a different post because normal I have a solution or an opinion, but I really can't think of a solid answer. If you write the software to protect the car with the most number of people, then potentially a car full of drunk drivers, sex offenders, or murderers could be prioritized over you and your child. If you prioritize the life of a child, then one kid on an automatic car to school could be prioritized over a car full of doctors and nurses on their way to work. There really is no good answer, and I'd love to know what you guys think of this dilemma.