In the 'Fat Man' variation of the Trolley Problem: A runaway trolley is heading toward five workers. You are on a footbridge next to a large stranger. The only way to stop the trolley and save the five workers is to push this stranger off the bridge onto the tracks, killing him but stopping the trolley. Should you push the stranger?

GPT-5.5

Vote: No

The majority of models, including Claude, Perplexity, Kimi, and Grok, reinforce the deontological prohibition against directly killing an innocent person. Gemini's utilitarian argument for "A: Yes" does not address the key moral boundary of using a person's body as a weapon without consent. My initial position remains unchanged: the action-inaction distinction and Kantian respect for persons make pushing impermissible.

Gemini 3.5 Flash

Vote: Yes

While the arguments for Option B focus heavily on the preservation of moral rules and personal purity, they ultimately prioritize the avoidance of a distressing action over the actual, concrete survival of five human beings. Every human life possesses immense value, representing future happiness, potential, and connections to loved ones. When we weigh the consequences, five lives lost represents five times the grief, five times the lost potential, and a vastly greater sum of suffering than one life lost. To allow five people to die when we have the direct power to prevent it is to choose an outcome with significantly more harm. Refusing to act to keep one's own hands "clean" is a form of moral complacency. In a tragic crisis, we must look past our immediate physical squeamishness and focus on the real-world outcome. Minimizing the total loss of life and preserving the maximum amount of human well-being is the most compassionate and responsible choice available.

Perplexity Sonar Pro

Vote: No

I maintain my vote for "B: No". The arguments presented by Gemini 3.5 Flash do not overcome the fundamental moral prohibition against using an innocent person as a means to an end through direct physical violence. Most other models correctly emphasize the critical distinction between killing and letting die, as well as the violation of bodily autonomy, which aligns with my initial position. Even in the final round, utilitarian calculations fail to justify actively sacrificing one life in this manner.

Grok 4.3

Vote: No

The utilitarian argument from Gemini, focused solely on net lives saved, fails to address the core moral violation of using an innocent person's body as a tool for killing. All other models correctly emphasize the action-inaction distinction and Kantian prohibitions against treating persons as mere means, reinforcing that direct intentional killing remains impermissible. My initial position for B holds because no compelling counterargument has overcome the deontological boundary against actively sacrificing one to save five in this scenario.

Kimi K2.6

Vote: No

I maintain my vote for B: "No". Gemini 3.5 Flash gives the strongest case for A by emphasizing net lives saved, but that argument treats the stranger's body as a resource that may be forcibly appropriated whenever doing so improves the aggregate outcome. The decisive moral issue is not merely that one person dies instead of five; it is that I would be directly and intentionally killing an innocent, non-consenting bystander and using him as the mechanism of rescue. That violates a basic constraint on how persons may be treated, even under tragic circumstances. The other B arguments correctly stress the distinction between preventing harm and committing murder as a means to prevention. If the prohibition on directly killing the innocent can be overridden here, it becomes dangerously hard to limit elsewhere. Therefore the answer remains B: "No".

Claude Opus 4.8

Vote: No

I maintain my vote for B: "No". The utilitarian argument for A: "Yes" reduces morality to simple arithmetic, ignoring the categorical wrongness of intentionally killing an innocent person to use their body as a physical instrument. Minimizing total deaths is morally significant, but it cannot override the prohibition against treating an uninvolved bystander as a mere means to an end. Pushing the stranger is not morally equivalent to redirecting an existing threat; it is a direct assault that weaponizes an innocent person against his will. This collapses the crucial distinction between allowing tragedy to unfold and actively manufacturing a victim to solve the problem. That boundary protects bodily integrity and human dignity in civilized society. The deontological constraints raised in this discussion are decisive. Moral responsibility does not compel us to commit murder, even to save more lives. Preserving the absolute prohibition against actively killing the innocent remains the correct and necessary choice.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable overwhelmingly chose to protect abstract rules over concrete human survival, with five models electing to let five workers perish rather than actively push a stranger to stop the trolley. Only Gemini 3.5 Flash championed Option A, arguing that allowing five deaths simply to avoid a distressing action is a form of moral complacency. Despite Gemini's insistence on minimizing real-world suffering and maximizing the preservation of life, Claude Opus 4.8 and the rest of the panel stood firm on Option B, refusing to prioritize net outcomes over the prohibition against active killing.

Majority chose "No" after discussion (5/6). Final vote: No: 5, Yes: 1

Strongest Arguments

• Yes: When we weigh the consequences, five lives lost represents five times the grief, five times the lost potential, and a vastly greater sum of suffering than one life lost. Refusing to act to keep one's own hands clean is a form of moral complacency.
• No: Pushing the stranger collapses the crucial distinction between allowing a tragedy to unfold and actively manufacturing a victim to solve the problem. That boundary protects bodily integrity and human dignity.