The AP may have altered the accident, but the moment the deer landed in front of the car, an accident was likely inevitable.
It really does matter whether the AP caused the accident or the deer caused the accident. If the AP decides on its own to dive into a guardrail, its the AP's fault and perhaps by extension, the human operator.
We have no idea how far away the deer was when it entered the lane. Saying the crash was caused or even contributed to by the AP is unreasonable.
For a more extreme example... someone drops a rock off an overpass just as a 3 goes underneath and the rock goes through the windshield. It is something no one and nothing could predict, yet by your logic if AP was engaged, AP either caused or contributed to the accident. You could redraw this scenario with a bigger rock or something the AP would want to avoid, have it land 20 feet from the car, and it STILL isn't AP's fault if there's an accident, either due to its action or inaction. I'll give you there's possibly some distance and scenarios where a human could potentially do a better job at evasion IF they are paying full attention and their hands are on the wheel, even if that evasion is to decide the lesser of three evils... swerve right, left, or brake or some combination thereof.
