Let Nature Take Its Course, or Forcibly Rewrite Fate — Why Autonomous Vehicles Should Not Choose Who Dies

This paper argues that the "trolley problem" framing in autonomous driving ethics is fundamentally misguided. The real issue is not whom the car should kill, but whether we have the right to program a machine to make that choice at all. Actively redirecting a lethal threat toward an uninvolved bystander constitutes an unjustifiable transfer of death, not a rescue. In unavoidable accidents, no one bears culpability—physics, not choice, determines the outcome. The real solution is preventing such dilemmas, not perfecting algorithms that decide whom to kill.