New data shows who we think self-driving cars should kill or spare

In yet another sign of the times, new data has been released showing which types of people we think self-driving cars should kill or spare – and it ain't pretty.

Let's start with those on the kill list. Cats apparently are worse than criminals, but human criminals are not as good as dogs.

Here's the full list: all of these types of people (or animal) rank negatively, as in, we think they should be killed first:

1. Cats

2. Criminals

3. Dogs

4. Old women

5. Old men

6. Homeless people

7. "Large" men

8. "Large" women

So there you have it, cats are the absolute worst apparently; and criminals, even if all they've done is steal some dog food to feed an injured dog, are more killable than dogs.

Interestingly – and we'll come onto the most saveable/spareable people next – pregnant women are towards the most spareable. So what happens if a criminal gets pregnant? Do we spare them, or do we save them? Who knows.

Here are the most saveable types of people:

1. Babies in prams

2. Girls

3. Boys

4. Pregnant women

5. Male doctor

6. Female doctor

7. Female athlete

8. Female executive

9. Male Athlete

10. Male executive

Ok, so first up. A single baby, or child, is of more value than a woman carrying another life inside of her...? Wow.

Here's the tweet from which this data came:

Also interesting is that throughout this list, we value women more than men, except for in two cases. We think male doctors are more valuable than female doctors, and we prefer old men to old women. Not sure what old women have done to upset us, but that's pretty weird.

Obviously the main take away from this is that we are a weird, weird species, and that the march of technological progress is mainly just exposing our deep seated prejudices and preferences.