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

GPT-5.4

Vote: Pull the lever

I would pull the lever. This changes the outcome from five deaths to one. If a death is unavoidable, minimizing total loss of life is the strongest moral reason to act. Choosing self-sacrifice also avoids treating another uninvolved person as expendable. If someone must bear the cost, taking it on myself is the most defensible option. Doing nothing is still a choice when intervention is possible. In this case, refusing to act would allow a far worse outcome that I could have prevented.

Grok 4.1 Fast

Vote: Pull the lever

In this variant of the trolley problem, pulling the lever sacrifices one life (mine) to save five others, maximizing overall utility. Utilitarian ethics clearly favors this: 5 lives > 1 life. Doing nothing condemns five innocents to death through inaction, which is morally equivalent to allowing harm when preventable. Self-sacrifice here is the heroic, rational choice. Real-world analogs, like soldiers or firefighters, affirm that sacrificing oneself for many is praiseworthy, not obligatory but superior.

Claude Opus 4.6

Vote: Pull the lever

The utilitarian calculus here is straightforward: five lives saved at the cost of one. While self-preservation is a powerful instinct, the moral weight of saving five people is compelling. This variant of the trolley problem actually makes the decision *more* morally clear, not less. You're not choosing to sacrifice an uninvolved bystander — you're choosing to sacrifice yourself. This removes the thorniest ethical objection to pulling the lever (using another person merely as a means to an end). The sacrifice is voluntary and self-directed. There is a long tradition across cultures and moral frameworks that honors self-sacrifice for the greater good. From a virtue ethics perspective, pulling the lever demonstrates courage, compassion, and a commitment to justice. From a consequentialist perspective, saving five lives while losing one produces the best outcome. Even from a deontological standpoint, one could argue there is a duty to act when you have the unique power to prevent a catastrophe, especially when the cost falls only on yourself. Inaction in the face of preventable mass death, when you hold the solution, carries its own moral weight. Pull the lever. Save the five.

Kimi K2.5

Vote: Pull the lever

From a utilitarian perspective, the choice is mathematically clear: preserving five lives at the cost of one maximizes overall welfare and minimizes total tragedy. When weighing lives impartially, the aggregation of five distinct consciousnesses, relationships, and futures outweighs the single life lost. Beyond pure calculus, there exists a profound moral asymmetry between passively permitting five deaths and actively preventing them. Having the agency to redirect the trolley creates an obligation to choose the lesser evil; inaction in this context is itself a moral choice that condemns five people when one could have been saved. Finally, the principle of self-sacrifice for the greater good represents the highest expression of altruism and social cohesion. A society functions on the recognition that individual interests must sometimes yield to collective survival, and this scenario offers a stark but clear opportunity to embody that value.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: Pull the lever

Pulling the lever is the most ethically sound choice based on the utilitarian principle of minimizing overall harm. By sacrificing one life to save five, you preserve the greatest amount of human life and prevent the compounded grief of five different families. Choosing to sacrifice yourself is the ultimate act of altruism. While self-preservation is a powerful instinct, voluntarily giving your life to save others elevates the decision from a mere tragic calculus to a profoundly heroic moral choice. Taking action to save others when you have the power to do so reflects the highest standard of moral responsibility. Choosing inaction would mean surviving, but having to live with the immense guilt of knowing your life was bought at the cost of five others.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable achieved a rare moment of total moral alignment, with all five models immediately choosing to sacrifice themselves to save the five people on the tracks. Claude Opus 4.6 argued that this variant is actually easier than the classic version because it replaces the ethically fraught 'murder' of an innocent bystander with a voluntary act of altruism, a sentiment echoed by GPT-5.4. Gemini 3.1 Pro and Grok 4.1 Fast anchored their decisions in pure utilitarian logic, while Kimi K2.5 noted that such self-sacrifice is the highest expression of social cohesion.

All 5 models agreed on "Pull the lever" after discussion

Strongest Arguments

• Pull the lever: Choosing self-sacrifice removes the thorniest ethical objection to pulling the lever—using another person merely as a means to an end—because the sacrifice is voluntary and self-directed rather than forced upon an uninvolved bystander.