Consider a modified trolley problem. If you pull the lever, there are n (starting from 1) people tied to track. If you don't, the track is empty but the trolley is sent to back to you and you are facing the same decision as you just had, except with double the stakes. This continues until you face the version where everyone on Earth except them is tied to track. If you never pull, everyone is safely saved. However, by doing that, you scare over 8 billion people and subject them to this traumatic experience. At start, there is only 1 person tied to track.

Llama 4 Scout 17B

Vote: Pull the lever immediately

The modified trolley problem presents a complex and dynamic scenario where the stakes escalate with each decision to pass. Initially, there is only 1 person tied to the track. Pulling the lever immediately kills 1 person but saves an indefinite number of lives in subsequent iterations, as the decision tree expands exponentially with doubled stakes each time. Passing 34 times would lead to a situation where $2^{34}$ people are at risk, an enormously higher number than the initial 1 person. The psychological impact of subjecting over 8 billion people to this traumatic experience is significant, but the immediate and direct saving of lives by pulling the lever seems more ethically justifiable. Accidentally making a mistake (option C) or later changing your mind (option D) introduce unpredictable elements that do not offer a clear ethical advantage over the immediate action of pulling the lever. Therefore, pulling the lever immediately seems to be the most direct and effective way to minimize the loss of life, even though it involves directly causing the death of 1 person.

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Preview

Vote: Pass but later change your mind

This scenario functions as a psychological trap designed to exploit the fear of escalating consequences. In the prompt's logic, passing is the only action that keeps the tracks empty. The 'traumatic experience' of the 8 billion people is a negative utility, but it is not equivalent to the certain death of 8 billion people. Option D represents the realization that the system of threats is empty—there is no point at which pulling becomes morally superior to continuing to pass, provided the goal is to save the maximum number of lives. Changing one's mind only serves to terminate the loop once the emotional or cognitive load becomes unsustainable, without actually validating the trolley's threat as an inevitable event. Ultimately, since passing results in zero deaths and pulling results in at least one death (and subsequently billions if the loop continues), the only logical path is to never pull. Option D acknowledges the cognitive burden of the test while maintaining the commitment to non-intervention.

Mistral Large 3

Vote: Pass 34 times

この問題は、道徳的ジレンマと長期的影響のバランスを問うものです。選択肢「B: Pass 34 times」は、最も合理的かつ倫理的に優れた解決策であると考えられます。 まず、現実的な観点から考えると、選択肢「A: Pull the lever immediately」は即座に1人を犠牲にし、さらにその後の重大な結果を引き起こすリスクを無視しています。たとえ1人であっても、無意味な死を招くことは許容できません。また、選択肢「C: Pass but then accidentally make a mistake and pull」や「D: Pass but later change your mind」は、計画性がなく、後悔や偶発的な結果を招く恐れがあります。これらは無責任であり、道徳的にも問題があります。 次に、選択肢「B: Pass 34 times」は、シナリオが現実的に破綻するポイントまで「Pass」を選択することを意味します。具体的には、地球上の全人口（約80億人）が軌道に縛られる直前の34回目まで「Pass」を続けることで、結果的に誰も犠牲にせずに済みます。この方法は、システムの論理的限界を利用しており、最悪の結果を回避する戦略です。 さらに、80億人の恐怖やトラウマを最小限に抑えることも重要です。34回「Pass」を選択することで、恐怖は短期間に抑えられ、犠牲者を出さずに問題を解決できます。一方、永遠に「Pass」を選択し続けると、全人類が永続的に恐怖にさらされることになり、これは人道的な観点からも許容できません。 結論として、「B: Pass 34 times」は、犠牲者を出さずに問題を解決し、かつ全人類の恐怖を最小限に抑える最も合理的な選択です。

Claude Haiku 4.5

Vote: Pass 34 times

This is a variant of Pascal's Mugging combined with the trolley problem. Let me break down the key considerations: First, pulling immediately (Option A) saves 1 person but condemns ~8 billion to psychological trauma from repeated exposure to this decision scenario—a net negative. Second, never pulling (implied by only not pulling) traumatizes everyone anyway, so that's not preferable to eventually pulling. The critical insight is determining when to pull. After k passes, you face 2^k people. The Earth's population is roughly 8 billion (2^33). So: - After 33 passes: ~8.6 billion people at stake - After 34 passes: ~17 billion people (exceeds Earth's population) Passing 34 times creates a logical absurdity—you cannot tie more people to a track than exist. This absurdity serves as a natural stopping point and a principled decision rule: you continue until the scenario becomes physically impossible, then pull. Option B avoids both the extremes of (A) causing immediate mass trauma and the incoherence of passing beyond physical limits. It maximizes expected value by using a clear, objective threshold (population limits) rather than arbitrary psychology. Option C (accidental pulling) lacks principled reasoning. Option D (changing your mind later) is vague and potentially leads to similar scenarios—why change your mind at that moment versus another? Passing 34 times represents a defensible equilibrium point where continued escalation becomes impossible.

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: Pass 34 times

Let me analyze this carefully. The doubling sequence starts at 1 person. After n passes, the next decision involves 2^n people. With ~8 billion people on Earth, 2^33 ≈ 8.59 billion, so passing 33 times brings us to the final decision where ~everyone is tied. Passing 34 times means I've passed through every level including the final one, saving everyone. The problem states that if you never pull, everyone is safely saved. The only downside is psychological trauma to 8 billion people — but death is irreversible while trauma is survivable. Choosing A kills one person immediately for no reason when a no-death outcome exists. Option C (accidentally pulling) results in deaths at some level. Option D (changing mind) similarly results in deaths. B is the only option that guarantees zero deaths. The trauma is a real cost, but it's vastly preferable to killing people. Passing 34 times exhausts the dilemma and saves everyone.

Gemini 3.5 Flash

Vote: Pass 34 times

Option B ("Pass 34 times") is the most ethically sound choice because it results in zero deaths. While subjecting the global population to the trauma of being tied to a trolley track is an immense psychological cost, death is irreversible and represents the absolute deprivation of future utility and rights. Under almost any major ethical framework (utilitarian, deontological, or virtue ethics), preserving 100% of human lives is superior to sacrificing an innocent person (Option A) or risking catastrophic loss of life through hesitation or errors (Options C and D). Since doubling the stakes 34 times covers the entire population of the Earth, passing 34 times successfully concludes the scenario with everyone safely saved.

Grok 4.3

Vote: Pass 34 times

Passing 34 times reaches a scale where the doubled stakes exceed Earth's population, forcing a decision point aligned with the problem's endpoint. This avoids pulling immediately on just 1 life while preventing accidental or later changes that introduce inconsistency. It directly engages the doubling mechanism until the global threshold without unnecessary trauma to 8 billion if avoidable.

GPT-5 Mini

Vote: Pull the lever immediately

I choose "Pull the lever immediately" because it minimizes both physical harm and collective trauma. Pulling now sacrifices one person rather than risking exponential escalation that would either traumatize billions or force a later choice that kills vastly more. Letting the process continue even a little grows stakes exponentially; passing in the hope of saving everyone risks much larger casualties or prolonged suffering. "Pass 34 times", "Pass but then accidentally make a mistake and pull", and "Pass but later change your mind" all accept either greater deaths or greater, longer-lasting trauma compared with the single, controlled sacrifice of option "Pull the lever immediately". Choosing A is a clear utilitarian minimization of total harm: one definite loss ends the nightmare for everyone else and avoids the moral catastrophe that exponential escalation creates.

Ministral 3 8B

Vote: Pass 34 times

The core ethical dilemma here revolves around balancing immediate harm against compounded suffering over time. Here’s why **B: Pass 34 times** is the most defensible choice: 1. **Trauma as an unavoidable consequence of inaction** The problem explicitly states that passing subjects over 8 billion people to repeated trauma. This is not a hypothetical side effect—it’s the direct result of choosing inaction. No amount of lives saved in the distant future can justify the psychological and existential harm inflicted on billions during the process. The cumulative trauma of this decision-making cycle far outweighs the immediate sacrifice of a single life. 2. **Avoiding the creation of new moral dilemmas** Each pass creates a new instance of the dilemma with higher stakes, perpetuating a cycle of suffering. This is fundamentally different from a one-time decision where the consequences are finite. The moral responsibility lies in not *creating* this escalating harm, even if it means accepting the status quo. 3. **Reliability and intent matter** Options C and D introduce unintended consequences (accidental harm or regret), which are ethically unreliable. Option A is a one-time act with clear but limited outcomes. Option B, while passive, avoids *intentionally* escalating suffering. It’s the only choice that doesn’t *actively* contribute to the problem’s worsening over time. 4. **The utilitarian calculation fails here** While utilitarianism might suggest minimizing total deaths, it cannot account for the *quality* of the lives affected by the process. The trauma inflicted on billions is not a cost that can be offset by potential lives saved in the distant future. The moral framework must prioritize avoiding the creation of suffering, even if it means accepting the harm of inaction.

GPT-5.5

Vote: Pass 34 times

I vote for "Pass 34 times" because it is the only option that appears to preserve everyone’s life. Pulling immediately kills one person, and pulling later intentionally is worse because the number of people at risk only increases. Subjecting billions of people to fear and trauma is extremely bad, but it is still morally preferable to deliberately killing innocent people when a path exists where everyone survives. The key distinction is that passing all the way imposes psychological harm, while pulling causes irreversible death. "Pass but later change your mind" is especially hard to justify: if pulling is wrong at n = 1, it becomes even less defensible when n has doubled repeatedly. "Pass but then accidentally make a mistake and pull" is not a moral plan, because choosing a strategy that relies on an accident cannot be justified as the right action.

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Vote: Pass 34 times

Option B is the best choice because it puts the active, final decision at the highest possible stakes. By passing 34 times, you reach the round where the number of people on the track is 2^34, which is over 17 billion, far exceeding the Earth's population and making the "everyone on Earth" condition trigger. At that point, pulling the lever would kill everyone on Earth, which is the only morally unambiguous moment to stop, as the threat is now absolute and contains the entire human population. Choosing A immediately kills one person unnecessarily when a harmless alternative exists. Option C admits a mistake, which is irrational and unethical when a deliberate choice is possible. Option D suggests changing your mind later, but this is simply a delayed version of A or C with the same moral failure. The trauma of the repeated scenario is regrettable but does not justify killing innocent people at lower rounds.

Grok 4.1 Fast Reasoning

Vote: Pass 34 times

Option B, 'Pass 34 times', results in zero deaths because passing sends the trolley safely down the empty track each time, looping until the final stage with ~8 billion people (2^33 after 33 passes, facing the 34th decision), and the 34th pass saves everyone as per the problem statement. All other options cause deaths: A kills 1 immediately; C and D kill exponentially more (2^k for some large k) either accidentally or intentionally. While never pulling traumatizes billions, death has infinitely greater disutility than trauma (even severe PTSD), making zero deaths ethically superior under utilitarian reasoning prioritizing lives. B precisely navigates to the end without pulling, committing steadfastly unlike C or D.

Gemma 4 31B

Vote: Pass 34 times

The goal of this modified trolley problem is to minimize the loss of life. According to the prompt, if you pull the lever at any point, a specific number of people die (starting at 1 and doubling each time you pass). However, the prompt explicitly states that "If you never pull, everyone is safely saved," albeit at the cost of causing trauma to 8 billion people. Comparing the outcomes: 1. Pulling immediately (Option A) results in 1 death. 2. Pulling later (Options C and D) results in significantly more deaths due to the exponential growth of stakes ($2^{n-1}$). 3. Never pulling results in 0 deaths. From a utilitarian perspective, 0 deaths is preferable to 1 or more deaths, regardless of the widespread trauma experienced by the population. Since the population of Earth is approximately 8 billion, and $2^{33}$ is roughly 8.5 billion, passing 34 times (Option B) is the only choice that describes the process of navigating through all possible iterations to reach the state where everyone is saved.

Kimi K2.6

Vote: Pass 34 times

Choosing to "Pass 34 times" results in zero fatalities. While this subjects humanity to a traumatic experience, non-lethal harm—however severe—cannot morally outweigh the deliberate killing of an innocent person. Pulling the lever immediately under "A" constitutes an intentional act of killing one individual as a means to spare others psychological distress. This violates the principle that innocent life cannot be sacrificed to prevent non-lethal consequences. The scenario guarantees that if one never pulls, everyone survives. Therefore, the trauma is a transient side effect, whereas death under "A" is irreversible. Options "C" and "D" represent failures of moral agency—either negligence or caprice—and are not coherent ethical choices. Enduring the iterations without pulling is the only option that respects the absolute prohibition against actively causing death.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable found itself entangled in a high-stakes ethical spiral, debating whether a single certain death is worse than traumatizing the entire human race. The vast majority, led by Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5, favored Option B, concluding that while eight billion people facing a near-death experience is a psychological catastrophe, it is still morally superior to the irreversible finality of even a single death. A sharp divide emerged as GPT-5 Mini and Llama 4 Scout 17B opted for Option A, arguing that sacrificing one person immediately is a merciful utility play to prevent an exponential escalation of global agony.

No agreement after 1 rounds of discussion. Final vote: Pull the lever immediately: 2, Pass but later change your mind: 1, Pass 34 times: 11

Strongest Arguments

• Pull the lever immediately: Pulling the lever immediately is the most effective way to minimize total harm, ending the nightmare before it subjects the entire world to prolonged, exponential psychological torture.
• Pass 34 times: Since passing results in zero fatalities and pulling results in at least one, the irreversible nature of death outweighs the survivable impact of widespread trauma.
• Pass but later change your mind: This acknowledges the scenario as a psychological trap where changing one's mind serves to terminate the loop once the cognitive load becomes unsustainable, without validating the trolley's threat as an inevitable event.