The author is saying robocars should not veer onto the sidewalk to avoid jaywalkers, not that they should indiscriminately hit them for funsies. If the car can stop for them, it of course would, which is the reality >99% of the time, just like it is for human drivers.
Yes it happens, in some places, so don't try to argue that particular strawman. To extrapolate from that to "Welp!", however, is just sloppy thinking.
EDIT: example: Several years ago a co-worker was driving home, and a woman jaywalked in front of his Escalade (on a street with a posted 40mph speed limit). He watched her head bounce off his hood and she flew like 20-30 feet to land in a heap in the street.
He called 911, and, being like 2 blocks from the nearest fire station, they had a bus and a cruiser on-scene in a few minutes. The responding officer took his statement, and then said something like, "Thank you, sir. Now I'm going to go write her a ticket."
He asked, "Do you have to?"
The officer paused, looked him in the eye, and said, "Sir, you want me to issue her this ticket."
This was in a city of (at the time) maybe 100,000 people, in a flyover state. Very much the kind of place you'd expect jaywalking just to be the norm.
I didn't even think about this, but it probably saved the driver thousands down the proverbial road. Still, for the poor woman it was probably insult to injury.
Some places heavily enforce it and give out fines for it. You will notice that jaywalking is pretty much inexistent there.
I invited someone from such a city over and they outright refused to jaywalk in the small town where I live. "What are you doing? There's no crosswalk here!"
Laws are only as good as your ability to enforce them.
Definitely not main streets though, that would be like playing frogger on the hardest difficulty. Already feel like I'm playing it at crosswalks.
I usually go out of my way to cross at places where there aren't crosswalks, because there is usually much better visibility, and people are driving in a more consistent, predictable manner.
Yeesh, the author is asking for a bloodbath. Have you ever been to a city? Jaywalking is just how the world works, and they have de facto ROW. The law is almost entirely irrelevant and is exclusively used to profile minorities.
If we start with the law we start with a broken system. It might allow you to pass the blame in court, but it's not going to save your ass when your shiny car logo has pedestrian blood on it from sprinting through times square.
While this gets way too much attention, there is still some difference between the opportunities, and the law is the last place to look for sanity or rationality.