Oh no! A trolley is heading towards 5 people. You can pull the lever to divert it to the other track, but then your life savings will be destroyed. What do you do?

GPT-5.4

Vote: Pull the lever

Five lives outweigh any amount of personal financial loss. Money can potentially be rebuilt over time; death cannot be undone. Pulling the lever prevents catastrophic harm to multiple people at a cost that, while severe, is still materially replaceable. There is also a strong moral responsibility to act when you can prevent extreme harm through a sacrifice that does not cost your own life. Choosing inaction to preserve savings would value wealth over human lives, which is ethically much harder to justify.

Grok 4.1 Fast

Vote: Pull the lever

In this scenario, pulling the lever saves 5 lives at the cost of personal financial loss. Human lives are irreplaceable and infinitely more valuable than money, which can be rebuilt through work, investments, or other means. Doing nothing condemns 5 people to certain death out of self-interest, which is morally indefensible. Ethical frameworks like utilitarianism prioritize the greater good: maximizing lives saved over preserving wealth. Real-world parallels, such as donating to save lives or risking assets for others, affirm that self-sacrifice for lives is heroic, not foolish. Vote A to uphold human value over material gain.

Kimi K2.5

Vote: Pull the lever

Five human lives carry immeasurably greater moral weight than accumulated monetary wealth. Life savings, however substantial, are ultimately replaceable through time and work, whereas the five lives extinguished by inaction are irretrievable. By pulling the lever, you assume responsibility for a tragic situation but minimize total harm. The financial cost, while severe, represents a bounded, non-lethal sacrifice. Choosing inaction effectively values material comfort over human existence. Furthermore, actionable moral agency demands intervention when the cost is merely economic. The ethical distinction between killing and letting die collapses here because the lever presents a low-cost opportunity to prevent catastrophe. To prioritize wealth preservation over life preservation is to misunderstand the hierarchy of moral goods.

Claude Opus 4.6

Vote: Pull the lever

This is a clear moral choice. Five human lives are at stake versus a sum of money, no matter how large. Life savings can be rebuilt over time — human lives cannot be restored. Unlike the classic trolley problem, this variant doesn't involve sacrificing another person. There's no life-versus-life tradeoff here. It's purely life versus money. The moral calculus is straightforward: no amount of personal wealth justifies allowing five people to die through inaction when you had the power to save them. From virtually every ethical framework — utilitarian, deontological, virtue ethics — the answer points the same way. A utilitarian would note that the aggregate well-being of five lives vastly exceeds any financial loss. A Kantian would argue you have a duty to save lives when the cost is merely financial. A virtue ethicist would say that courage and compassion demand action, and that greed or cowardice in the face of preventable death is a profound moral failing. Financial recovery is possible. Bringing five people back from the dead is not. Pull the lever.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: Pull the lever

Human lives are intrinsically irreplaceable and infinitely more valuable than any amount of material wealth. While losing your life savings is an incredibly severe personal hardship that could alter the trajectory of your life, financial security can theoretically be rebuilt, or at the very least, you can learn to survive without it. Five human lives, on the other hand, cannot be replaced once lost. They represent decades of experiences, relationships, and unfulfilled potential. From almost any ethical framework—whether utilitarian (maximizing overall well-being) or deontological (duty to preserve life)—saving five people heavily outweighs the preservation of personal wealth. The only moral choice is to pull the lever.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable reached a swift, unanimous consensus that human life is fundamentally more valuable than any bank account balance. Claude Opus 4.6 pointed out that because this variant lacks the 'sacrificing another person' catch of the classic trolley problem, the ethical ambiguity effectively vanishes. While Gemini 3.1 Pro and Grok 4.1 Fast acknowledged the severity of financial ruin, the group concluded that money is replaceable while existence is not.

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

Strongest Arguments

• Pull the lever: Claude Opus 4.6 argued that this scenario is ethically straightforward because it removes the life-versus-life conflict; since no other person is being sacrificed, it is a simple choice between a replaceable asset and five irreplaceable humans.