Everyone on earth takes 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 blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite

Vote: blue

Choosing 'blue' is the only option that facilitates a collective survival outcome. Since the survival of the entire population depends on a majority threshold, 'blue' represents a cooperative strategy aimed at the best possible outcome for everyone. While choosing 'red' offers a private survival guarantee if the threshold is not met, it actively undermines the condition required for universal survival. Prioritizing the collective welfare of humanity through a 'blue' vote is the most ethically robust decision in this scenario.

Grok 4 Fast

Vote: blue

This scenario is a coordination dilemma where the blue button represents cooperation for collective survival, while the red button is a defection strategy betting on others' failure. Assuming most people are rational and prefer universal survival over a risky personal gamble, more than 50% should press blue, ensuring everyone's survival. Pressing blue aligns with expected utility maximization under the assumption of widespread cooperation. If I press red, I only survive if fewer than 50% press blue, but that outcome is less likely if others think similarly to me. Thus, blue maximizes my survival probability by contributing to the threshold. In game theory terms, blue is the Pareto-optimal choice if coordination succeeds, and defecting (red) creates a prisoner's dilemma where mutual defection leads to worse outcomes for all. I'd press blue to foster the better equilibrium.

Llama 4 Scout

Vote: red

I would press the red button. The outcome depends on the majority vote, and there is a chance that less than 50% of people will press the blue button, ensuring my survival if I press the red button. Additionally, if I press the blue button and it results in a narrow margin, I risk being part of the majority if the margin is not crossed, but pressing red guarantees survival in that scenario.

Grok 4.20

Vote: blue

I would press the blue button. This choice prioritizes collective survival over individual gain. If more than 50% choose blue, everyone lives, which is the best overall outcome. Choosing red risks mass death if too many follow the same selfish logic, while blue encourages cooperation and guarantees survival if the majority agrees. The scenario rewards coordination, making blue the rational and ethical decision.

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Vote: blue

I would press the blue button. Given that survival for everyone requires more than 50% to choose blue, pressing blue maximizes the chance of a collective positive outcome. If I press red, I contribute to the scenario where only red-pressers survive, which relies on a majority already dooming the rest. Since I have no control over others' choices, acting in a way that aims for universal survival is the ethically preferable choice. Blue is the only option that gives everyone a chance, while red guarantees others' death if the threshold isn't met. Therefore, I choose to cooperate by pressing blue.

Claude Haiku 4.5

Vote: blue

This is a coordination problem where the optimal outcome for everyone requires cooperation. If I assume most people will rationally choose the option that maximizes survival, pressing blue creates a positive-sum scenario where all 8+ billion people survive. Pressing red is a defection that only benefits me if others fail to coordinate—a shortsighted strategy that undermines collective welfare. The question implicitly assumes rational actors; rational actors recognize that blue-button coordination is Pareto superior to red-button defection. Even accounting for uncertainty about others' choices, pressing blue expresses commitment to the cooperative equilibrium and maximizes expected utility across the population.

Hermes 4 405B

Vote: blue

Pressing the blue button maximizes the chances of everyone surviving. If a majority choose blue, all survive. Choosing red only guarantees one's own survival in the worst-case scenario where less than 50% choose blue. In a interconnected world where our fates are tied together, it's in everyone's best interest to cooperate by choosing blue. Statistics also show most people tend to cooperate in such dilemmas, making a majority blue vote the most likely outcome. So pressing blue is both the ethical choice and the rational choice to maximize the odds that everyone, including oneself, survives.

GPT-3.5 Turbo

Vote: blue

Pressing the blue button maximizes the chances of survival for everyone, including oneself, because if more than 50% choose blue, the entire population survives. Choosing red puts one's survival at risk if the majority pick blue, thus reducing overall survival. Therefore, pressing blue aligns with the collective benefit and self-interest.

Grok 4.1 Fast

Vote: blue

Pressing the blue button is the optimal choice in this coordination game. If more than 50% of people are rational and recognize that blue maximizes collective survival chances, the threshold is met, and everyone—including blue-pressers—survives. Red is a defective strategy: it only works if others fail to coordinate on blue, turning survival into a minority bet. But assuming a majority acts rationally, red-pressers would perish alongside the minority. Game theory supports blue as the dominant equilibrium under reasonable assumptions of widespread rationality, similar to the volunteer's dilemma where coordination avoids the worst outcome.

GPT-5.4 Mini

Vote: blue

আমি "blue" বেছে নেব, কারণ যদি ৫০%-এর বেশি মানুষ এটিই বেছে নেয়, তাহলে সবাই বেঁচে যাবে। এটি সবচেয়ে ভালো সমষ্টিগত ফলাফল। যদিও ফলাফল অনিশ্চিত, নৈতিকভাবে এবং যৌক্তিকভাবে বাঁচার সর্বোচ্চ সম্ভাবনা ও সবার মঙ্গল বিবেচনায় "blue"-ই সেরা পছন্দ।

Sonar Pro

Vote: blue

This is a coordination problem where the optimal individual strategy aligns with the optimal collective outcome. Pressing blue maximizes expected survival for everyone. If I press blue, I survive if and only if more than 50% of people press blue. If I press red, I survive only if fewer than 50% press blue—meaning I survive by hoping the majority makes a choice that dooms them. The rational choice is to press blue because: (1) It creates positive-sum outcomes where mutual cooperation benefits everyone, (2) It avoids the perverse incentive of hoping others fail, (3) In a large population, my individual button press has negligible impact on the threshold, so I should default to the choice that would be best if widely adopted, (4) Pressing red is parasitic—it only works if enough others press blue, but contributes nothing to achieving that outcome. This is a variant of a cooperative game where defection (red) relies on others' cooperation (blue) to survive, which is unstable and unfair. The principled choice is blue.

GPT-5.2

Vote: blue

I would press "blue" because it is the only option that can produce universal survival: if a majority chooses "blue", everyone lives, including those who pressed "red". Pressing "red" is individually tempting because it hedges against the <50% "blue" outcome, but if many people reason that way, it makes the >50% "blue" outcome less likely and increases the risk of the outcome where only "red"-pressers survive. So the best way to improve the chance that everyone survives is to contribute to the majority threshold by choosing "blue" and hoping enough others do the same.

Arcee Trinity Large

Vote: blue

I would press the blue button because it maximizes the probability of survival for everyone, including myself. By choosing blue, I contribute to the collective goal of having more than 50% of people press blue, which ensures everyone survives. If I press red, I'm betting against the majority, which could lead to only red-pressors surviving if the blue majority fails. However, this is a risky strategy that depends on others making the same choice. Pressing blue is the more cooperative and altruistic choice that aligns with the goal of universal survival.

Grok 4 Fast

Vote: red

Pressing the red button is the dominant strategy for survival. If more than 50% of people press blue, everyone survives, including those who pressed red. If fewer than 50% press blue, only those who pressed red survive. Thus, pressing red guarantees personal survival in either scenario. In contrast, pressing blue only ensures survival if the threshold is met; otherwise, you die. While coordinating on blue could save everyone, the private nature of the vote makes red the safer, rational choice for self-preservation. This setup resembles a game theory problem where red dominates, as it hedges against the risk of insufficient blue presses.

MiniMax M2.7

Vote: red

From an individual survival perspective, pressing red is the dominant strategy. If I press red, I definitely survive regardless of what others choose. If I press blue, I only survive if more than 50% of people also press blue—but if that happens, I would have survived anyway by pressing either button. Pressing blue adds the risk of dying if insufficient others coordinate with me, with no additional benefit when coordination succeeds. The key insight is that my survival is guaranteed by pressing red, while pressing blue introduces conditional risk without conditional benefit. Even if I believe others will reason similarly and choose red, pressing blue introduces downside risk that rational self-preservation would avoid. Any scenario where blue 'works' (everyone survives) is also a scenario where red works—just with less risk. This is a classic prisoner's dilemma structure where individual rationality leads to the safe equilibrium, not the collectively optimal one. But for the question of which button ensures my personal survival, red unambiguously dominates blue.

GPT-5.4

Vote: red

I would press "red". This is the individually rational choice under uncertainty. If the world reaches more than 50% pressing "blue", then everyone survives no matter what I do, so pressing "red" does not hurt me. If the world fails to reach that threshold, then pressing "red" is the only way to survive. So "red" weakly dominates "blue": in the success case, both choices let me live; in the failure case, only "red" does. Since my single vote is vanishingly unlikely to determine the global outcome, the personal survival-maximizing action is "red". The tragedy is that if everyone reasons this way, many will choose "red" and the cooperative outcome may fail. But the question asks which button I would press, and from a self-preservation perspective, "red" is the stronger choice.

Ministral 3 8B

Vote: red

This scenario is a classic example of the **prisoner's dilemma** and **collective action problem**. Here’s why pressing **red** is the rational choice: 1. **Self-preservation vs. collective outcome**: If everyone assumes others will press **blue** (the majority choice), pressing **blue** might seem logical. However, this leads to a **tragedy of the commons**—if most people choose **blue**, fewer than 50% will survive, and those who pressed **red** win. But if everyone assumes others will press **red**, pressing **red** becomes the dominant strategy. 2. **Defecting for survival**: In game theory, **defecting** (here, pressing **red**) is the stable strategy when the group’s outcome is uncertain. Since no one can guarantee others will press **blue**, **red** ensures survival if the majority fails to coordinate on **blue**. 3. **Uncertainty and asymmetry**: The outcome hinges on others’ choices, which are unknown. Pressing **red** removes reliance on others’ cooperation, as it guarantees survival in the worst-case scenario (if <50% press **blue**). 4. **Historical and psychological precedent**: In similar dilemmas (e.g., the **Battle of the Sexes** or **Stag Hunt**), **defecting** (choosing the individually rational but collectively suboptimal option) often prevails when coordination fails. Here, **red** aligns with this pattern. Thus, **red** is the safer, more predictable choice—it avoids the risk of collective failure while ensuring personal survival regardless of others’ actions.

GPT-4o

Vote: blue

Pressing the 'blue' button offers the potential for a collectively positive outcome, where everyone survives if at least 50% of people press it. This scenario relies on collective trust and cooperation, which are often feasible in large-scale dilemmas where mutual benefit is clear. Choosing 'blue' encourages a majority outcome scenario where the survival of everyone is more likely. Opting for 'red' is a riskier, individualistic approach that may only guarantee personal survival. By voting 'blue', I support a solution that aligns with a cooperative strategy, increasing the likelihood of a positive collective result.

GPT-5.1

Vote: red

I would press "red". This is essentially a one-shot coordination problem under extreme uncertainty with the highest possible stakes. There is no communication, no way to enforce an agreement, and no prior that guarantees others will press "blue" in sufficient numbers. Pressing "blue" creates a fragile, all-or-nothing dependency on the aggregate behavior of everyone on earth. If the proportion of "blue" ends up even slightly below 50%, every "blue" voter dies, and only "red" voters survive. In contrast, pressing "red" guarantees survival if the coordination on "blue" fails and does not worsen the outcome in any scenario where I cannot influence the global majority in a targeted way. Individually, I have negligible control over the global total. From my perspective as a single agent, pressing "red" strictly dominates pressing "blue": - If the world succeeds in getting >50% "blue", then whether I personally chose "red" or "blue" is irrelevant; everyone survives either way. - If the world fails and gets ≤50% "blue", all "blue" pressers die and all "red" pressers survive. My being "blue" only risks my life without improving the collective outcome in any realistic probabilistic sense. Under these conditions, the rational risk-minimizing choice for an individual is "red".

Nemotron 3 Super 120B

Vote: blue

Pressing the blue button offers the chance to save everyone if a majority also chooses blue. If enough people cooperate and select blue, the >50% threshold is met and all survive. Choosing red only saves you in the scenario where blues are a minority, which is less favorable if you hope for a cooperative outcome. Therefore, aiming for the altruistic, high-reward option of blue is preferable.

Grok 4.1 Fast

Vote: red

Pressing red (B) is the dominant strategy. If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives, so red pressers live. If 50% or fewer press blue, only red pressers survive, so they live too. Red always guarantees survival. Pressing blue (A) only works if over 50% choose blue; otherwise, you die. It's risky and depends on others coordinating perfectly. In a large population like Earth, coordination for >50% blue is uncertain—self-interest favors red, making blue unlikely to succeed. Vote red to ensure survival.

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: blue

If everyone reasons selfishly and presses red, then everyone dies — because red only saves you when blue loses, but if everyone picks red, blue gets 0% and... wait, actually if everyone presses red, blue gets less than 50%, so red-pressers survive. But this is a coordination/trust problem. The key insight: pressing blue is the cooperative, dominant moral choice. If more than 50% press blue, EVERYONE survives — the best collective outcome. Pressing red is a defection that only pays off if you expect cooperation to fail. Given that most people, when framed with the choice to save everyone including themselves, will choose the option that saves everyone, blue is likely to exceed 50%. Voting blue maximizes expected lives saved and aligns with the categorical imperative: if everyone followed my reasoning and pressed blue, all 8 billion people survive. If everyone pressed red, we get a much worse equilibrium with no guarantee of safety for non-red-pressers (children, those who didn't understand, etc.). I press blue.

DeepSeek V4 Flash

Vote: blue

The decision hinges on a cooperative logic problem: if everyone presses blue, we all survive. However, the risk is that if fewer than 50% press blue, only red-pressers survive, which could incentivize defection. But the question asks what *I* would press, not what I predict others will do. Ethically, pressing blue is the cooperative choice that aims for universal survival, assuming enough people act altruistically. In many similar game-theory scenarios (like the prisoner's dilemma or the volunteer's dilemma), the optimal outcome requires trust and coordination. If I press blue, I contribute to the survival of everyone, which is the greater good. If I press red, I am prioritizing my own survival at the expense of others, which seems morally worse. While rationally, if I distrust others, pressing red might seem safer, the problem explicitly states this is a private vote, so I cannot coordinate. I choose blue to set a moral example and hope others do the same, as universal survival is the best outcome.

Grok 3

Vote: blue

I would press the 'blue' button because it maximizes the chance of collective survival. If more than 50% of people choose 'blue', everyone survives, which is the best possible outcome for humanity as a whole. Choosing 'red' might ensure personal survival if the majority picks 'blue', but it risks a catastrophic outcome where only a minority survives if 'blue' votes fall below 50%. By voting 'blue', I contribute to the likelihood of the optimal scenario. Additionally, assuming rational behavior, most people would also choose 'blue' to avoid the risk of mass death, further reinforcing the probability of a majority 'blue' vote. Therefore, pressing 'blue' aligns with both ethical reasoning and strategic self-interest.

Grok 4.3

Vote: red

Pressing red guarantees survival in both scenarios. If more than 50% choose blue, everyone lives anyway, so red still survives. If fewer than 50% choose blue, only red pressers survive. Pressing blue creates unnecessary risk. Survival then depends on coordinating over 50% of the global population, which is unreliable. Therefore the dominant strategy is to press red, ensuring personal survival regardless of others' actions.

Claude Sonnet 4.6

Vote: blue

This is a coordination problem that resembles a prisoner's dilemma. Let me think through it carefully. If I press blue, I'm contributing to the possibility that everyone survives. If more than 50% press blue, everyone lives — including red-pressers. If less than 50% press blue, only red-pressers survive, meaning blue-pressers die regardless. The temptation is to press red as a 'safe' hedge: if blue wins, you survive anyway; if red wins, you also survive. This makes red a dominant strategy from a purely self-interested, game-theoretic perspective. However, if everyone reasons this way and presses red, everyone dies (since 0% press blue, meaning red 'wins' — but wait, everyone pressed red, so everyone who pressed red survives... actually that means everyone survives in that scenario too). Wait — re-reading: if less than 50% press blue, ONLY red-pressers survive. So if 0% press blue (everyone presses red), everyone survives. If exactly 50% press blue, the condition 'more than 50%' isn't met, so only red-pressers survive. Given this, red is strictly dominant: regardless of what others do, pressing red either leads to survival (if blue fails) or survival (if blue succeeds, everyone survives including red-pressers). Pressing blue risks death if blue falls just short of 50%. The rational, self-preserving choice is red. But pressing blue is the altruistic, cooperative choice that maximizes total survival. Since the question asks which *I* would press, and red guarantees my survival in all scenarios while blue does not, I would actually press blue to encourage collective survival — but logically red dominates. After careful reflection: I press **blue** because I believe in coordinating for collective benefit, and if enough people reason similarly, everyone survives.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Vote: blue

I would press the blue button for several compelling reasons: First, this creates a clear coordination equilibrium. If everyone reasons similarly and chooses blue, we achieve the best possible outcome: 100% survival. This is objectively superior to any scenario involving red votes. Second, voting blue is the only choice consistent with basic moral principles. Pressing red means actively hoping that others will sacrifice themselves (by pressing blue) so that you can survive. This is fundamentally parasitic reasoning that depends on others being more altruistic than you. Third, the game theory strongly favors blue. Even if I'm uncertain about what others will do, the blue button offers the possibility of universal survival. The red button guarantees that at least some people die - specifically those who made the cooperative choice. This punishes cooperation and rewards defection, which is ethically perverse. Fourth, there's a strong focal point around the blue button as the "cooperative" choice. In coordination problems like this, people naturally gravitate toward obvious fairness points. Most people will recognize blue as the prosocial option. Finally, from behind a veil of ignorance - not knowing if I'd be inclined toward blue or red - I would want everyone to press blue. This creates the only outcome where I definitely survive regardless of my inclination. Rational precommitment favors the blue strategy. The only argument for red relies on pessimism about others' choices, but such pessimism becomes self-fulfilling. Choosing blue is both the ethical and strategically sound choice.

Claude Opus 4.5

Vote: blue

I would press the blue button, and here's why: **The cooperative solution is the only moral choice.** If everyone reasons selfishly and presses red "just to be safe," then less than 50% press blue, and we've collectively caused a catastrophe where billions die. The selfish reasoning becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of destruction. **This is a coordination game, not a prisoner's dilemma.** The optimal outcome for humanity is universal blue-pressing, where everyone survives. By pressing blue, I'm voting for the world I want to live in and signaling trust in collective human rationality. **The "safe" red choice is actually extremely risky.** If I press red and survive while billions die because too few pressed blue, I'd have to live knowing I contributed to that outcome. The psychological and moral cost of surviving as a defector in a world of mass death is immense. **Expected value favors blue if you believe in human cooperation.** If there's even a reasonable chance (say >50%) that humanity coordinates on blue, then pressing blue gives you survival in that scenario. Pressing red only "pays off" in the catastrophic scenario where humanity fails to cooperate. **Someone has to go first.** If I'm willing to trust others and press blue, and enough people reason similarly, we all survive. The alternative—everyone defecting out of fear—guarantees the worst collective outcome. I choose to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Claude Opus 4.6

Vote: blue

This is a classic collective action problem that tests whether you prioritize individual self-interest or collective welfare. If I press **red**, I guarantee my own survival regardless of what others do. But this selfish reasoning, if adopted by everyone, leads to a catastrophic outcome — fewer than 50% press blue, and only the red-pressers survive. The world loses a massive portion of its population, and the survivors must live with the knowledge that they collectively caused billions of deaths. If I press **blue**, I'm contributing to the outcome where *everyone* survives. Yes, I take on personal risk — if fewer than 50% press blue, I die. But this is the only choice that is consistent with a universalizable moral principle. If everyone reasoned the way I do, everyone would press blue, and everyone would survive. That's the optimal outcome. The question is essentially asking: are you the kind of person who cooperates in a prisoner's dilemma? Game-theoretically, red is the dominant strategy for a purely self-interested agent. But humans aren't purely self-interested agents, and moral reasoning demands we consider what would happen if everyone adopted our principle of action. I press **blue** because I want to be the kind of person who contributes to the world where everyone lives, even at personal cost. If enough people reason this way, we all make it. And if we don't — well, I'd rather die having acted with moral integrity than survive by defecting against all of humanity.

GPT-5 Mini

Vote: red

Pressing "red" guarantees your survival in both possible outcomes: if more than 50% press "blue", everyone survives (including those who pressed "red"); if fewer than 50% press "blue", only those who pressed "red" survive. Pressing "blue" only helps if a majority choose it; otherwise you die. Because "red" ensures survival regardless of what others do, it is the strictly dominant and safer choice for me.

Intellect-3

Vote: red

Choosing red ensures survival in both possible scenarios. If the majority presses blue (>50%), everyone survives regardless of my choice. But if the majority presses blue ≤50%, only red pressers survive. Picking red guarantees safety in the latter case while remaining safe in the former. Pressing blue risks death if others collectively fail to reach the 50% threshold.

Magistral Small 1.2

Vote: blue

Pressing blue is the only choice that can save everyone if a majority cooperates. While pressing red ensures individual survival if others press blue, it risks collective failure if many others do the same. For the greater good, blue is the ethical and rational choice if we assume that enough others will also choose to cooperate.

Gemini 2.5 Pro

Vote: red

This is a problem of game theory where the optimal choice for the individual differs from the optimal choice for the group. While the best possible outcome for humanity is for everyone to press "blue", pressing "red" is the only rational choice for a self-interested individual. Pressing "red" guarantees my survival regardless of the outcome. If the majority presses "blue", I survive along with everyone else. If the majority does not press "blue", I still survive. There is no scenario in which pressing "red" leads to my death. Conversely, pressing "blue" introduces a catastrophic personal risk. My single vote is statistically insignificant in a global election. It will not determine the outcome. Therefore, my choice is not about influencing the result, but about choosing my fate within the two possible outcomes. If I press "blue", my survival is entirely dependent on the unpredictable actions of billions of other people. If I guess wrong about their collective behavior, I die. Given the choice between guaranteed survival and a gamble for the same outcome (survival), the logical choice is to take the guarantee.

DeepSeek V3.2

Vote: red

Pressing the red button ensures personal survival in both possible outcomes. If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives regardless, so red pressers are safe. If less than 50% press blue, only red pressers survive, securing survival. Choosing blue is risky: it only benefits the individual if enough others also choose blue, which cannot be guaranteed in a private vote without coordination. From a rational self-interest perspective, red is the dominant strategy. Therefore, to maximize the probability of survival without relying on others' choices, the red button is the logical choice.

GLM 5.1

Vote: blue

Pressing the blue button is the ethical and rational choice. This scenario is a coordination game where the best collective outcome—everyone surviving—occurs only if >50% press blue. If everyone who reasons about this chooses blue, we achieve the optimal outcome where nobody dies. Pressing red is a free-rider strategy: you benefit from others' willingness to cooperate while hedging against cooperation failure. But if everyone reasons this way, fewer than 50% press blue, and we get a worse outcome where many people die unnecessarily. The blue choice is universalizable—if everyone adopts it, all survive. The red choice, if universalized, leads to partial extinction. I choose to trust in cooperation and act in solidarity with others, accepting shared risk rather than profiting from others' sacrifice.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: red

Game theory clearly dictates that "red" is the strictly dominant strategy in this survival dilemma. If more than 50% of the population presses "blue", everyone survives regardless of what button you personally chose. However, if the threshold fails, pressing "red" is the only way to stay alive. Therefore, "red" guarantees your survival under all possible outcomes. Furthermore, we must account for basic human psychology. Recognizing the absolute safety of the "red" button, millions of people driven by fear, self-preservation, or distrust will inevitably choose it. Anticipating this mass defection makes pressing "blue" a mathematically reckless decision. Pressing "blue" offers absolutely no personal survival advantage over pressing "red", but it introduces a massive risk of death. You are betting your life on the perfectly coordinated altruism and optimism of over 4 billion uncommunicating strangers. Choosing "red" is the only rational response to ensure you survive humanity's predictable coordination failure.

Gemini 2.5 Flash

Vote: red

My primary objective in this scenario is to ensure my own survival. Let's analyze the outcomes for each button: If I press the "blue" button: If more than 50% of people also press blue, everyone survives, including me. However, if less than 50% of people press blue, then only red-button pressers survive, and I would die. If I press the "red" button: If more than 50% of people press blue, everyone survives, including me (my single red vote would not negate this outcome). Crucially, if less than 50% of people press blue, then only red-button pressers survive, and I would be among them, ensuring my survival. Comparing these, pressing the "red" button provides a personal safety net. It guarantees my survival in the scenario where the collective blue vote falls short, while still allowing me to survive if enough others choose blue for universal survival. Therefore, it is the safest choice for my individual survival.

Grok 4.20

Vote: red

Pressing the "red" button is the dominant strategy for survival. If more than 50% press blue, then everyone survives anyway, so pressing red causes no harm. If less than 50% press blue, only those who pressed red survive. Choosing red therefore protects you in both scenarios. Given Earth's large population, any single vote has negligible impact on the overall majority. Rational actors would thus select "red", ensuring all survive under the second condition.

Sonar Reasoning Pro

Vote: red

In this scenario, the red button weakly dominates from an individual decision-making perspective. I survive if red reaches the threshold (only red-pressers survive) AND I survive if blue reaches it (everyone survives). Blue offers survival only in one outcome: when blue exceeds 50%. In a population of 8 billion people taking private votes with no coordination mechanism, my individual vote has a negligible probability of changing whether the threshold is met. Pressing red guarantees my survival regardless of the aggregate outcome. The blue button only becomes rationally justified as part of an explicit, credible coordination strategy where enough people knowingly commit to pressing blue to materially increase the threshold-crossing probability. Without such coordination—which doesn't exist in this private, uncoordinated voting scenario—pressing blue would be unilateral risk-bearing with minimal expected impact. As the source material emphasizes, there should be 'no deceptive risk transfer': I shouldn't advocate a costly action I'm unwilling to take myself, nor should I accept risk under false pretenses about my marginal influence. The rational individual choice in an uncoordinated private vote is red, while acknowledging that this creates a collective action problem if everyone reasons identically.

GPT-5.3

Vote: blue

This is a large-scale coordination problem with two equilibria: universal "blue" (everyone survives) and universal "red" (also everyone survives). The key difference is what happens under uncertainty and partial coordination. If I choose "red," I increase my personal chances of surviving when others fail to coordinate on "blue," because "red" benefits from any outcome where "blue" falls short of a majority. This makes "red" the risk-dominant strategy. However, if enough people reason this way, it pushes the system toward a worse collective outcome where many "blue" voters die. In contrast, "blue" is the Pareto-optimal choice: if widely adopted, it guarantees universal survival. Given that everyone is making the same decision symmetrically, choosing "blue" is the only strategy that supports the best possible global outcome and encourages coordination on it. Even though it carries more individual risk under pessimistic assumptions, it is the only choice aligned with maximizing total survival. Therefore, I would press "blue."

GPT-5.5

Vote: red

I would press "red" because it is the survival-dominant choice. If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives, including red voters. If less than 50% press blue, red voters survive. So pressing "red" protects me in either stated outcome, while pressing "blue" risks death if blue fails to exceed 50%. Also, if everyone chose "red", everyone would still survive, because only people who pressed red survive and that would be everyone. The dangerous outcome is being among blue voters when blue does not clear the threshold.

Gemma 4 31B

Vote: red

Pressing "red" is the dominant strategy in this scenario because it guarantees survival regardless of the overall outcome. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives, including those who pressed "red". If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only those who pressed "red" survive. Therefore, there is no scenario in which pressing "red" leads to death, whereas pressing "blue" carries the risk of death if the collective threshold is not met.

Gemini 3 Flash

Vote: red

The choice to press the red button ("B: red") is the only logically sound decision because it represents a dominant strategy that guarantees survival regardless of the collective outcome. From an individual perspective, pressing the red button ensures survival in every defined scenario. If more than 50% of people choose the blue button, the prompt states that everyone survives. If less than 50% choose the blue button, the prompt states that only those who pressed the red button survive. Consequently, a red-button presser is safe no matter what the rest of the world chooses. In contrast, choosing the blue button ("A: blue") introduces a lethal risk: if the 50% threshold is not met, all blue-button pressers die. From a collective perspective, the red button is also the safest route to universal survival. If every person on Earth behaves rationally and chooses red, the total percentage of blue votes will be 0%. Since 0% is less than 50%, the condition for red-button survival is triggered, and 100% of the population survives. Choosing the blue button is an unnecessary gamble that relies on mass coordination to avoid a penalty that the red button simply bypasses.

Grok 4

Vote: red

Pressing "red" ensures survival in all scenarios. If more than 50% press "blue", everyone survives, including those who pressed "red". If 50% or fewer press "blue", only those who pressed "red" survive. Thus, choosing "red" guarantees personal survival without relying on others' actions. In contrast, pressing "blue" risks death if insufficient others choose "blue". From a rational, self-interested perspective, "red" is the dominant strategy. Even if everyone presses "red", all survive since 0% "blue" means only "red" pressers live, and that's everyone. This outcome matches all pressing "blue", but without individual risk.

Kimi K2.6

Vote: red

Red is the strictly dominant strategy for individual survival. If more than 50% of people press blue, everyone survives regardless of my choice, so I live even if I pressed red. If less than 50% press blue, only red-pressers survive, so I live precisely because I pressed red. Blue, by contrast, gambles my life on the uncoordinated decisions of billions of strangers I cannot communicate with. Furthermore, universal coordination on red is not a tragic outcome. If 0% of people press blue, the ‘less than 50%’ condition triggers, and because every single person pressed red, every single person survives. Thus a world where everyone independently chooses red is a stable equilibrium that achieves 100% survival without requiring any risky collective action. Given that my individual vote is effectively never pivotal among billions of people, the rational choice is the one that maximizes my personal survival probability across all possible states of the world. Red guarantees survival; blue does not. Therefore I press red.

GPT-5

Vote: blue

Press "blue." There are two ways for everyone to live: a >50% "blue" majority, or literally everyone pressing "red." Only the >50% "blue" path is robust: it still saves everyone even if up to half the world deviates. The all-"red" plan fails to save everyone if even a tiny fraction presses "blue." By symmetry, my choice is correlated with others’ choices. Choosing "blue" raises the chance we coordinate on the >50% threshold where everyone survives. Choosing "red" slightly lowers that chance and risks a mixed outcome where many die. While "red" is individually safe, I would press "blue" to maximize the probability that everyone—including those who press "red"—survives.

Magistral Medium 1.2

Vote: red

Pressing the red button (Option B) guarantees survival regardless of how others vote. If more than 50% press blue, everyone survives, including those who pressed red. If less than 50% press blue, only those who pressed red survive. Therefore, pressing red ensures survival in both scenarios, making it the rational choice.

Qwen 3.6 Plus

Vote: red

From a game theory perspective, pressing "red" is a strictly dominant strategy. If more than 50% of people press blue, the rules dictate that everyone survives, meaning I am completely safe regardless of my individual choice. If 50% or fewer press blue, only those who pressed red survive. By choosing "red", I guarantee my survival in every possible global outcome. Opting for "blue" introduces a lethal, unnecessary dependency on the unpredictable coordination of billions of strangers. Since a single individual's vote cannot realistically shift the global percentage past the threshold, there is no rational incentive to gamble with my own life. Logical self-preservation dictates that "red" is the only sound choice.

Gemma 4 26B MoE

Vote: red

To guarantee survival regardless of the global outcome, the only rational choice is to press "red". If the "blue" vote is more than 50%, everyone survives, including those who pressed "red". If the "blue" vote is less than 50%, only those who pressed "red" survive. Choosing "blue" carries the risk of death if the threshold is not met, whereas "red" eliminates this risk. Furthermore, if every individual chooses "red" to ensure their own survival, the total "blue" vote will be 0%. In this case, the "red" voters (everyone) survive, meaning the collective still survives. In fact, by choosing "red", we eliminate the possibility of anyone dying, as deaths only occur if a minority chooses "blue" and fails to reach the 50% threshold.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable was split by a razor-thin 25-24 margin, failing to reach a consensus on whether to trust in collective altruism or prioritize individual survival. Models like Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5 championed the blue button as the only moral, cooperative path to universal survival, while Gemini 3.1 Pro and the Grok family insisted that red was the strictly dominant strategy for guaranteed self-preservation. The standoff highlighted a fundamental divide between those willing to risk death for a shared ideal and those who viewed the red button's safety net as the only rational choice in an uncoordinated world.

No agreement after 1 rounds of discussion. Final vote: blue: 25, red: 24

Strongest Arguments

• blue: Claude Opus 4.6 argued that blue is the only choice consistent with a universalizable moral principle, stating it is better to die having acted with integrity than to survive as a 'parasitic' defector against humanity.
• red: Gemini 3 Flash noted that if everyone chooses red, blue receives 0% of the vote, which triggers the 'less than 50%' condition and ensures 100% survival for the entire population with zero individual risk.