It seems to me that YOUR arguments are about “contrived absolutes”, while the rest of us mere humans understand that the general principles regarding caring for an infant are different than caring for a transportation system. Even admitted philosophy and/or econ majors on this forum don’t argue absolutes with your frequency.
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“instead”? The Venn diagram shows a lot of overlap.
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You should have mentioned Toyota, who’s bug ridden nightmare has killed people because you cannot override it, and I’m guessing you cannot replace it either. Most expensive software per line of code ever (too bad that money mostly went to damages, instead of doing it right the first time). 10,000+ (yes over ten thousand) global variables…etc.
Also,the absurdity of having software any time soon that is aware there is a trolley problem, your car will take a very conservative approach, it will change lanes and stop, it just might be willing to cross into oncoming traffic if that is really clear, but it’s going to be a long time before it can figure out who is going to die as a result of its choices.
And who cares, with us distractable monkeys out of the loop, accidents will probably fall 90-99%, a few bad guesses with the trolley problem will be well worth it.
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This becomes about vehicle dynamics, not ethics. If you are that close to an unpredictable object, changing direction is unlikely to be feasible unless there is nothing else around, and even then it may not work due to lack of tyre adhesion.
If I had the job of making this decision I would simply brake as hard as possible. Cars have their main occupant protection against front and front diagonal collisions. The thing in the road has to take its chance but may survive - after all, the self driving car is travelling at legal speeds. In effect, it is the difference between a foreseeable range of outcomes and an unforeseeable range of outcomes. In all such situations the vehicle should simply stop as soon as possible within its own lane. The belief of some drivers that they can get out of such situations by superior driving skill is likely to be very Dunning-Krueger; there are very few highly skilled drivers about.
The self driving car has additional advantages; it will have IR sensors so is likely to pick up deer or animals much earlier than a human driver, and it doesn’t switch off its algorithms because it is tired, drunk or on the phone, so it will be travelling slower in urban areas or before blind bends.
The important thing is that the rules be set by the experts - the SAE, transportation authorities, accident prevention bodies - and not by lawyers who will spout nonsense at juries for money. It works for aircraft, it mostly works for ships (which are increasingly autonomous), it could work for cars.
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I don’t have any arguments, I just like talking about stuff!
What are my absolutes, here?
In Soviet Russia, radical generalization specifies you!
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Philosophers are the source of almost as many problems as mathematicians
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after all, the self driving car is travelling at legal speeds.
Perhaps the most crucial change brought by autonomous vehicles will be the adherence to speed limits and road laws. Many, many lives would be saved if humans were collectively capable of making/willing to make that change.
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Mathematicians at least sometimes also provide solutions. Their work can be also actually applied and become useful. I’d say that redeems them.
Granted but, if you’re suggesting that the work of philosophers cannot be applied nor useful, we will have to disagree.
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Outliers exist. The overall return-on-investment is still pretty close to zero.
All the mathematics in the world won’t do much to make you a better person.
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All the philosophers in the world cannot agree what “better” is.
Because that’s our job.
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Philosophy is a smorgasbord of ideas. Pick whatever you like, then armor your particular choice with the Big Name that’s behind it.
Whatever you want, there’s some body of works that will bolster you.
Good when feeling insecure. Not much useful otherwise.
Then you haven’t leaned how to philosoph
It’s possible. I spent the time learning how to engineer, and actually achieve something.
That explains everything (no disrespect intended at all) 
Engineers do wonderful things with their minds to help the world enjoy complex and reliable systems and constructions, and you have my respect and gratitude for applying yourself that way.
However, engineering and mathematics don’t do much to help us guide our internal life and our interpersonal relations. This is where philosophy (with our without the spice of “religion”) excels.
There is no one truth, no perfect measurement, because we ourselves are the only instrument. If you can get past that, then try to see the method that Buddha and Socrates (via Plato) describe. It’s a scientific method of the self - start by calibrating your instrumentation.
I’m no expert, but I know enough to know that they were excellent.
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That’s it! We’ll get way better answers from neuroimaging techniques. Psychology is bound to become an exact science over time, being eaten alive by neurology. And the technologies are getting better, and there are many, from the venerable fMRI to emerging near-infrared tomography.
I’m no dualist, but I’m not sure that any resolution gains in brain imaging could replace introspection.
We’ll see, maybe someday the imaging technician will say “that dark spot shows that you are feeling unsatisfied with your accomplishments in life because you lack a sense of community.”… Maybe.
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Anything a brain does is reflected in its pattern of activity. Get sufficient spatial/temporal resolution on the activity (and the wiring, which you can potentially get from the activity patterns over time), get the image of the current function.
More likely, “this pattern of responses to standardized audiovisual stimulus sequence”.
