The first priority should always be your occupants. Hardcoded.<p>Otherwise, can you imagine the first incident in which some passengers died because the code prioritized the life of someone else? Would <i>anyone</i> want to buy an autocar after that? &quot;YOUR CAR COULD CHOOSE TO KILL YOU&quot;, the headlines will say.<p>The second priority should be the safety of pedestrians who are <i>off the road.</i><p>Until we have computational power at the level of divine prescience, I don&#x27;t think you can do much else in scenarios like the one you described, other than have a chain of basic priorities that falls back on &quot;stop everything.&quot;<p>Eventually though, powerful-enough AI may be able to simulate all outcomes down to a very granular level, such as the difference between outright killing someone or just injuring their limbs to the point of crippling them for life.<p>Many factors will need to be considered then; who appears to be the weakest individual among the unavoidable targets? Are there any acquaintances of the owners among them? Is there a hospital nearby that could tend to their injuries? Does it look like a suicide attempt?