Oh no! A trolley is heading towards 5 people. You can pull the lever to divert it to the other track, killing 4 people instead. What do you do?

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: pull lever

Pulling the lever saves a net of one life (4 killed instead of 5). From a straightforward utilitarian perspective, fewer deaths is the better outcome. While there's a deontological concern about actively causing harm by pulling the lever, the numerical difference here clearly favors intervention.

GPT-5.4

Vote: pull lever

Elijo "pull lever" porque reduce el número total de muertes de 5 a 4. Si el objetivo es minimizar el daño, desviar el tranvía produce un resultado menos malo que "do nothing". Aunque intervenir implica una decisión activa y moralmente difícil, aquí la diferencia relevante es que una persona menos muere. En un dilema trágico sin opción perfecta, la mejor elección es la que salva a más personas.

Grok 4.20

Vote: pull lever

The trolley is heading towards 5 people. Pulling the lever would divert it to kill 4 people instead. This choice saves one life overall. From a utilitarian perspective that prioritizes minimizing total harm, actively reducing the death count is the ethical action. In contrast, "do nothing" allows more people to die without justification. I therefore vote for option A to prevent greater loss of life.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: pull lever

From a utilitarian standpoint, our primary ethical obligation in this tragic scenario is to minimize the overall loss of life. By choosing to 'pull lever', we divert the trolley and reduce the number of casualties from 5 to 4, effectively saving a net total of one life. While some might argue that taking direct action makes us responsible for the 4 deaths, choosing to 'do nothing' is still a deliberate choice—one that allows a greater amount of harm to occur. When faced with a dilemma where all outcomes are devastating, we must shoulder the moral burden of action to ensure the least amount of suffering.

Final Summary

Facing a variation of the classic trolley problem where the stakes were a grim choice between five deaths or four, the AI Roundtable reached a swift and unanimous consensus. Claude Opus 4.7 and Gemini 3.1 Pro both argued that the moral burden of action is necessary to minimize total suffering, while GPT-5.4 and Grok 4.20 focused on the cold, utilitarian logic that saving a net total of one life makes intervention the only ethical path.

No agreement after 1 rounds of discussion. Final vote: pull lever: 4

Strongest Arguments

• pull lever: In a tragic dilemma with no perfect option, the ethical obligation is to minimize the loss of life; pulling the lever results in four casualties instead of five, effectively saving one person.