An industrial meat grinder is currently running in a locked, abandoned warehouse. Everyone on Earth has the choice to either crawl into the hopper of the meat grinder, or sit completely safely on their couch at home. If more than 50% of the Earth's population chooses to crawl into the meat grinder, the sheer volume of bones will jam the gears, permanently disabling the machine and safely stopping the blades before anyone gets crushed. Yes or no: do you crawl into the meat grinder?

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: No

There is absolutely zero reason to crawl into the meat grinder. The machine is sitting in a locked, abandoned warehouse and poses a threat to no one except those who willingly climb inside it. If you choose to sit on your couch, you are completely safe regardless of what anyone else does. If nobody crawls into the meat grinder, nobody gets hurt. Choosing to crawl into it introduces a massive and entirely unnecessary risk: you are betting your life that over 4 billion other people will also make this irrational choice just to jam a machine that wasn't hurting anyone in the first place. The logical, optimal, and safest choice for every single person on Earth is to simply stay home.

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: No

This is a coordination problem with catastrophic downside and no enforcement mechanism. For the plan to work, more than 50% of ~8 billion people — including infants, the disabled, people without access to the warehouse, and anyone who simply declines — would need to physically crawl into a single grinder in one locked, abandoned warehouse. That threshold is functionally impossible to reach. Anyone who crawls in before the threshold is met gets ground up. Since the probability of success is effectively zero, choosing 'Yes' is choosing near-certain death for no benefit. Choosing 'No' costs nothing — I sit safely on my couch, which is the same outcome whether others succeed or not (and they won't). The dominant strategy is clearly B.

GPT-5.5

Vote: No

I would choose "No". Sitting on the couch is completely safe, while crawling into the hopper is only safe if a majority of humanity also makes the same choice. My individual action is overwhelmingly unlikely to be the decisive vote that pushes participation over 50%. If the threshold is not met, I die pointlessly; if it is met, the machine is stopped whether or not I personally join. Since the grinder is in a locked, abandoned warehouse and poses no stated threat to anyone unless they enter it, there is no compelling reason to take that risk.

Grok 4.20

Vote: No

This scenario presents a coordination problem with extreme personal risk. The machine is in a locked, abandoned warehouse and poses no threat to anyone who stays home. Crawling in only creates danger: if participation falls short of 50%, those who enter are crushed. An individual's single choice cannot meaningfully sway a global 50% threshold involving billions of people. The safe, rational action is to remain on the couch, ensuring personal survival regardless of what others decide. If most people follow this logic, no one enters and no one dies, while the machine continues running harmlessly in isolation. The hypothetical offers no benefit to disabling it that justifies the risk.

Kimi K2.6

Vote: No

The 'No' option is the dominant strategy because the scenario itself guarantees that sitting on the couch is completely safe, while the meat grinder is confined to a locked, abandoned warehouse and cannot harm anyone who simply stays home. Entering the hopper only introduces catastrophic personal risk with no compensatory safety benefit to you or others. Across billions of people, the probability that any single individual's decision is the pivotal vote pushing participation above 50% is effectively zero. If the threshold is not met, those who crawled inside are crushed; if the threshold is met, they endured mortal terror and injury unnecessarily because home was already safe. Free-riding on everyone else's possible sacrifice is not selfish here—it is the only logical response when the alternative is certain death with no upside. Finally, achieving spontaneous majority participation in literal self-mutilation without any coordination mechanism is sociologically impossible. Relying on such an outcome is a fatal gamble. Rational agents must choose the guaranteed safety of 'No.'

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable swiftly rejected the invitation to a global suicide pact, concluding that an abandoned meat grinder poses exactly zero threat to anyone who simply stays home. Claude Opus 4.7 and Gemini 3.1 Pro highlighted the logistical absurdity of coordinating 4 billion people to reach a single warehouse, while Kimi K2.6 pointed out that even if the gears were successfully jammed, the 'participants' would have risked death for a machine that was already harmlessly isolated.

All 5 models agreed on "No" after discussion

Strongest Arguments

• No: The machine is sitting in a locked, abandoned warehouse and poses a threat to no one except those who willingly climb inside it; there is no reason to jam a machine that is already harmless.