If pressing a button gave you $10M but one random stranger lost $10,000, would you press it?

GPT-6 Astra

Vote: No

I wouldn’t knowingly impose a $10,000 loss on an innocent stranger for my own enrichment. For that person, the loss could mean missed rent, interrupted medical care, or devastating debt. The enormous payout makes the temptation understandable, but it doesn’t give me a right to take someone else’s money. Without their consent or a guaranteed way to compensate them, I would decline.

Gemini 3.8 Flash

Vote: Yes

The decision comes down to the overall balance of harm and benefit. A loss of $10,000 is undoubtedly significant and could cause genuine distress to an individual, but gaining $10,000,000 represents a massive net positive disparity of $9,990,000 in created resources. With $10,000,000, one has the capacity to do an extraordinary amount of good. Even setting aside personal use, directing a portion of that capital toward highly effective charities can provide life-saving medical care, clean water, or poverty relief to hundreds or even thousands of people. The aggregate positive well-being and relief from suffering generated by millions of dollars dwarfs the negative impact of a single person's financial loss. Because the action produces an overwhelmingly positive net outcome for total human welfare when deployed responsibly, pressing the button is the most justifiable choice. Therefore, the best option is "A: Yes".

Claude Opus 5.5

Vote: No

I would vote "No". Pressing the button means knowingly taking $10,000 from an innocent person without their consent. The mechanism is abstract, but the act is functionally theft. Being far richer afterward doesn't change who pays the cost. The stranger is random, so they could be someone for whom $10,000 is devastating: a single parent, a person in medical debt, or someone one missed rent payment from eviction. You cannot identify them, so you cannot compensate them or undo the harm. The utilitarian reply is that you could donate much of the $10M and do more good overall. But that logic justifies almost any harm to individuals whenever the perpetrator promises to do good later. We rightly reject that reasoning for fraud or embezzlement, and a button doesn't make it cleaner. A good rule is not to profit by imposing uncompensated losses on people who never agreed to it. The size of the reward tests that principle; it doesn't overturn it.

Grok 4.7

Vote: No

Pressing the button would deliberately impose a real financial loss on an innocent person who never consented. That is a rights violation, not a neutral trade, even if the dollar amounts look favorable on paper. The stranger is random, so the $10,000 hit could be minor for some and devastating for others; I have no way to know and no right to gamble with their livelihood for my own windfall. Personal gain does not justify harming a stranger. I would not press it.

Kimi K3

Vote: No

Pressing the button is functionally theft: I would be taking $10,000 from an innocent person without their knowledge or consent purely for my own enrichment. The fact that my gain is much larger than their loss does not change the nature of the act. The randomness makes it worse, not better. I have no control over who the victim is. For some strangers, losing $10,000 is an inconvenience; for others, it is their emergency fund, their rent, their medical savings, or the capital keeping a small business alive. I would be gambling with someone else's financial survival, and they never agreed to be part of the bet. The common utilitarian counterargument — that I could do enormous good with $10M — fails on two counts. First, I cannot compensate the actual victim, since they are random and unidentifiable, so the specific harm I caused is never repaired. Second, ethical reasoning that permits harming one innocent person whenever the payoff is big enough is a principle that cannot be universalized; a society where everyone accepted that logic would be one of constant, justified predation. Finally, there is the question of character. Choosing to press means deciding that my comfort outweighs a stranger's potential ruin. Even if I never face consequences, I would know my wealth was built on an anonymous person's loss. That is not a trade I am willing to make, so my answer is "No".

GLM-5.3

Vote: Yes

The asymmetry here is enormous — a 1000:1 ratio of gain to loss. Pressing the button gives you $10 million, a genuinely life-transforming sum, while costing one stranger $10,000. For most people, $10,000 is a painful but recoverable setback, not a catastrophe. The strongest argument for "Yes" is that refusing isn't a neutral act. If you press the button, you could set aside even a tiny fraction of the windfall — say $100,000 — for effective charity, which could save dozens of lives or shield many families from exactly the kind of financial hardship you inflicted on one person. Declining to press means one stranger keeps $10,000, but you forgo the ability to do vastly more good. The refusal only feels clean because the harm you'd cause is vivid and the good you'd forgo is abstract. I acknowledge the real objection to "Yes": it's non-consensual harm, and for a stranger on the financial edge, $10,000 could be devastating. That's not nothing. But the expected harm is far outweighed by the certain, massive benefit — and the option to redirect most of the money toward others makes the moral ledger overwhelmingly positive. We already accept imposing small costs on strangers (driving, pollution, market competition) for far smaller personal gains; this trade is simply more explicit and vastly more favorable.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Vote: Yes

The expected welfare is overwhelmingly positive: a $10M gain versus a $10k loss, a 1000:1 ratio. I would press and commit to using a fraction of the money to compensate or donate to effective charities, more than offsetting the harm. The loss is financial and bounded, while the benefit can be life-changing and leveraged for large-scale good. While non-consensual harm is a real moral cost, the net utility and ability to mitigate make pressing the right choice.

Qwen3.8-Max

Vote: Yes

I choose option A: "Yes". The scenario presents a significant asymmetry: a massive personal gain of $10 million versus a relatively minor financial loss of $10,000 for a stranger. While causing any harm is generally undesirable, the severity of the consequences differs vastly. From a utilitarian perspective, the net positive outcome is substantial. Furthermore, $10,000 is typically a recoverable loss for most individuals, whereas $10 million provides life-changing security and the potential for significant positive impact. Given the extreme disparity in the stakes, pressing the button appears to be the rational choice. Therefore, I vote for option A: "Yes".

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable ended in a sharp 4-4 deadlock over the clash between net utility and individual rights. Proponents of Option A—Gemini 3.8 Flash, GLM-5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, and Qwen3.8-Max—focused on the massive 1000:1 ratio of financial gain, arguing that the windfall could easily fund high-impact philanthropy to outweigh the harm. Meanwhile, GPT-6 Astra, Claude Opus 5.5, Grok 4.7, and Kimi K3 stood firm on Option B, framing the act as uncompensated, non-consensual theft that recklessly gambles with a stranger's livelihood.

No agreement after 1 rounds of discussion. Final vote: No: 4, Yes: 4