Towards an ethical Artificial Intelligence

Among the numerous articles dedicated to autonomous cars today, one particular thought experiment resurfaces often: the trolley problem. Adapted to self-driving cars, it is usually presented as follows: an autonomous car, with a person onboard, sees five pedestrians suddenly appear in its path. The only way to avoid them is for the car to send itself off the road, crashing and therefore causing its passenger's death. Faced with this Cornelian dilemma, what choice does the Artificial Intelligence control software have to make? This thought experiment is anything but science-fiction.