I develop automated driving functions for a living and have been extensively trained in driving this kind of vehicles. I find the whole media discussion about the case really bizarre, the weirdest was the US lawyer who claimed that here we'd seen the first case of the train car dilemma and that the vehicle would have clearly decided that it's the safest to run over the pedestrian.
The point is: The car was in development stage and thus (generally speaking, local law may vary slightly here and there) not a true autonomous car, but it was driven by the safety driver. Period. IIRC Google is now planning to ditch the safety driver, but as long as he/she's behind the wheel, there's no question about responsibility. Zero.
How the lady driving the vehicle could watch a TV show on her cellphone is totally beyond me. Our test vehicles are specifically designed to be operated without having to take the eyes off the road, like having single button measurement triggering and stuff like that. Even a short glance at the measurement screen is absolutely forbidden here, no one of my colleagues would even dream about taking out their cellphone...
Another point that the media misses in the whole debate:
One has to keep in mind that there is no big leap in the development of these systems which brings you from "normal car" to "Level 5" in one software release, but everything is sequentially tested and developed. The vast majority of test drives I did were with only very specific functions under test actually activated - in simplified terms, imagine you're working on keeping the lane, and while you're doing that you switch of any collision mitigation functions so they don't interfere with what you want to look at. That's not a safety issue at all because...*you* are driving the car!
In that context also, the media outrage that Uber deactivated the Volvo's own assistance systems is totally bewildering to me. Of course you do, the last thing you want is two different functions which don't know about each other interfering and sending the car off the road!