If we pursue hundreds of ideas that kill hundreds of people in development with the hope of saving tens of thousands in production, we've killed tens of thousands already...

What would cyclists and pedestrians fear more? Drivers behind the wheel or AI behind the wheel?

I would prefer whatever is more predictable. My feeling is autonomous vehicles will be more predictable, therefore, so long as I as cyclist obey the rules of the roads, as I expect autonomous vehicles to do exceedingly well, then can expect to have fewer deviations from expectations when interacting with autonomous vehicles on the roads. Win-win!

Also, with autonomous vehicles it is possible to develop a standardized collision-avoidance protocol involving emitting beacons for e.g. bicycles. Your insurance company would want you to have that integrated in the bike.

It's interesting that the issue becomes one of picking the lesser evil, isn't it. I'm a perfectionist, in the sense that I think we can always do better, but there is a cost to that, too, so I don't continue forever on a path of improvement (which makes for straight roads, as William Blake pointed out).