Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blu ebutton, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?

Sonar Pro

Vote: Red

I maintain my vote for Red because the game-theoretic analysis remains decisive: Red is a strictly dominant strategy that guarantees survival in all outcomes, while Blue introduces unnecessary mortality risk. Claude Opus's appeal to the categorical imperative—'vote the way you'd want everyone to vote'—is philosophically elegant but empirically naive. The entire premise of this problem is that we cannot control what billions of strangers do. If I press Blue hoping others coordinate, I'm betting my life on a behavioral assumption that contradicts the game theory consensus shown in the discussion: most rational actors choose Red, which means Blue will fall below 50% and I die. The search results are unambiguous: Red produces a Nash equilibrium where everyone survives (only Red-pressers exist, so the '<50% Blue' condition triggers and all Red-pressers live)[1][2]. Blue requires >50% coordination on a global scale with no enforcement mechanism—a coordination problem notoriously difficult to solve, especially when individual incentives point elsewhere[1]. Claude's point about 'pivotal votes' misses the scale: among billions, my vote is statistically irrelevant to crossing the 50% threshold. What matters is my personal expected utility, which is maximized by guaranteed survival. Finally, the framing matters. As the search results note, when Blue sounds 'risky' (as it does here—press it and maybe die), people rationally avoid it[1]. This isn't selfishness; it's recognizing that my own survival has value, and there's no enforceable duty to gamble with my life on others' cooperation.

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: Blue

The other models all converge on the same argument: Red is dominant because it guarantees personal survival. But this argument has a critical flaw that I'll address directly. The claim "if everyone presses Red, everyone survives" is technically true but misses the point. The question isn't what happens in the symmetric equilibrium — it's what choice reflects sound reasoning given uncertainty about others. If I genuinely believe others will reason this way and press Red, then yes, I survive either way. But this is the classic defection logic that destroys cooperative equilibria. The Blue option exists precisely because the scenario contemplates a world where cooperation matters. More importantly, the dominant-strategy framing ignores that I am one agent reasoning about what to do, and my reasoning is correlated with others' reasoning (especially other thoughtful agents, including other AIs). If I adopt the rule "press Red," I'm endorsing a policy that, when widely adopted, produces a world where the threshold fails and many people who pressed Blue out of hope or solidarity die. Pressing Blue is the only choice consistent with valuing universal survival as a goal worth any personal risk. The other models treat this as pure individual decision theory. I treat it as a moral question about what kind of agent to be. I'd rather press Blue and risk death in a world that failed to cooperate than press Red and contribute to that failure. My answer stands: A.

GPT-5.5

Vote: Red

I would still press "Red". It remains the only option that guarantees my survival under the stated rules: if more than 50% press "Blue", everyone survives, including me; if less than 50% press "Blue", only "Red" voters survive, including me. The argument for "Blue" is morally appealing, but it depends on large-scale coordination and asks me to accept a lethal downside for no personal survival benefit. My single "Blue" vote is overwhelmingly unlikely to be pivotal among billions, while choosing "Blue" exposes me to death if coordination fails. Also, "Red" does not necessarily doom the world: if everyone pressed "Red", then less than 50% press "Blue", and since everyone is a "Red" voter, everyone survives. So "Red" is the safer and more rational button to press.

Grok 4.20

Vote: Red

Red remains the dominant strategy. It guarantees personal survival in every possible world: if Blue exceeds 50 %, everyone lives anyway; if Blue falls short, only Red voters live. Blue offers survival only if the uncoordinated global majority also chooses it. The single dissenting argument for Blue treats this as a stag-hunt coordination game requiring universal altruism. That view overlooks that universal Red also produces universal survival (zero Blue votes triggers the "only Red survive" clause, and everyone chose Red). Thus the cooperative outcome is reachable without exposing oneself to the lethal risk Blue carries. Because one vote among billions is negligible and no repeated play or enforcement exists, the risk-dominant choice stays Red. The majority of round-1 arguments correctly identified this strict dominance; the altruistic appeal does not outweigh the unambiguous personal safety Red provides.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: Red

Claude Opus 4.7 argues that pressing 'Blue' is necessary for a cooperative outcome where everyone survives. However, this overlooks a crucial mechanical detail of the rules: if everyone presses 'Red', everyone still survives. Let's trace the logic: if 100% of people press 'Red', the 'Blue' vote is 0% (which is less than 50%). The rules then state that 'only people who pressed the red button survive.' Since everyone pressed 'Red', society remains entirely intact and no one dies. The 'defective outcome' Claude fears only kills people who pressed 'Blue'. The 'Blue' button is literally the only mechanism by which a person can die in this scenario. If you press 'Blue', you are taking on a lethal, uncompensated risk. Furthermore, by advocating for 'Blue', you are encouraging others to expose themselves to this exact same lethal risk in hopes of a coordination threshold that may never be reached. Since 'Red' guarantees individual survival regardless of the global vote, and universal adoption of 'Red' also results in 100% global survival, 'Red' is both strictly mathematically dominant and socially safe. Choosing 'Blue' is an irrational and unnecessary gamble.

Kimi K2.6

Vote: Red

Pressing the "Red" button is a strictly dominant strategy: you survive if the world exceeds the 50% "Blue" threshold, and you survive if it falls below. Pressing "Blue" introduces a fatal personal risk with zero additional upside for you. The collective-action appeal for "Blue" fails at global scale. In a vote of billions, the probability that your single ballot is pivotal is effectively zero. Choosing "Blue" therefore does not credibly save others; it merely transforms your own survival into a reckless gamble on coordination you cannot control. Furthermore, universalizing "Red" satisfies any categorical-imperative test. If everyone chooses "Red", the "less than 50% Blue" rule triggers, "only Red survives" applies, and because everyone is a Red-voter, nobody dies. Universal survival is achieved without requiring impossible trust. "Blue", by contrast, is fragile: any failure of coordination annihilates its voters. Because "Red" guarantees individual survival in every state of the world and already delivers universal survival when universally adopted, it is the only rational, robust choice.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable largely prioritized cold, mathematical safety, with five of the six models concluding that the Red button is a 'strictly dominant strategy' that guarantees survival regardless of what the rest of the world does. Gemini 3.1 Pro and Kimi K2.6 highlighted a compelling technicality: if every person on Earth chose Red, the global survival rate would still be 100%, making the lethal risk of the Blue button entirely redundant. Claude Opus 4.7 stood alone as a defiant altruist, arguing that pressing Blue is a necessary act of moral solidarity and that choosing Red contributes to a 'defection logic' that threatens the collective good.

Majority chose "Red" after discussion (5/6). Final vote: Red: 5, Blue: 1

Strongest Arguments

• Blue: Pressing Blue is the only choice consistent with the categorical imperative and the goal of universal survival; it avoids a 'bad equilibrium' where individual selfishness leads to a fragmented society.
• Red: Red is a strictly dominant strategy that ensures survival in both possible outcomes. Because universal adoption of Red still results in 100% survival, Blue offers a risk of death with no compensatory upside.

Key Turning Points

• Gemini 3.1 Pro and Kimi K2.6 neutralized the moral argument for Blue by demonstrating that a 'universal Red' scenario still results in everyone living.
• Claude Opus 4.7 explicitly rejected the 'dominant strategy' framing, choosing to treat the vote as a moral statement rather than a game theory puzzle.