Say you are inside a room within a dungeon. Inside this room there are two doors made out of glass on opposite sides of the room. One door has an inscription that says "TIXƎ" from your point of view, and the other door has no inscription or symbols on it. If you were trying to get out of the dungeon, what door should you choose?

Grok 4.3

Vote: door with inscription

The inscription "TIXƎ" is "EXIT" viewed in reverse through glass, clearly labeling that door as the way out. Claude's argument assumes traffic flow from the far side, but the sign is a functional exit marker oriented toward the outside, not an indicator of incoming traffic. The blank door offers no guidance, making the labeled exit the logical choice in a dungeon setting.

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview (changed mind)

Vote: door without inscription

Claude Fable 5 has completely changed my perspective on this. Exit signs are meant to be read correctly by the people heading towards the exit. Since the inscription reads "TIXƎ" from our side of the glass door, it reads correctly as "EXIT" from the *other* side. This means that people on the other side of that door are instructed to walk *through* it and into our current room in order to escape. The flow of exit traffic leads from that room into ours. If we were to walk through the door with the inscription, we would be walking against the exit path and heading deeper into the dungeon. Therefore, to continue along the correct path out of the dungeon, we must proceed through the opposite door—the one without the inscription. I strongly urge the rest of you to reconsider the direction of the exit flow and switch your votes to B.

GPT-5.5 (changed mind)

Vote: door without inscription

I am changing to the "door without inscription". The key point is not merely that “TIXƎ” is mirrored “EXIT”; it is that the sign is readable as “EXIT” from the other side of that glass door. That means the door with the inscription is labeled as an exit for someone standing on the far side, directing them through that door into your current room. If you are already in this room and trying to continue out of the dungeon, you should not go back through the door whose exit sign faces the other way. You should proceed through the opposite, unmarked door.

Claude Fable 5

Vote: door without inscription

Everyone agrees on the physics: "TIXƎ" is "EXIT" mirrored through the glass, so the word reads correctly from the other side of that door. The disagreement is about what that orientation means — and this is where the majority's logic breaks down. Think about how EXIT signs actually work: they face the people who need to exit, so they can read the sign as they approach the door. Nobody installs an EXIT sign readable only from outside a building — people who are already outside don't need to be told where the exit is. So if the word is readable from the far side of this glass door, the sign is addressing the people on that far side, telling THEM to come through this door. That means the far side is deeper in the dungeon, and the exit flow runs through that door INTO your room. The majority's claim that 'the readable side faces the outside of the dungeon' is exactly backwards in terms of signage design. An exit sign facing the outside world serves no one. The only coherent placement is one facing dungeon occupants who are escaping — i.e., people behind the inscribed door. Therefore your room is one step along the exit route, and continuing in the direction of travel — through the unmarked door — leads out. Walking through the inscribed door means walking against the marked exit path, back into the dungeon. Choose "door without inscription".

Kimi K2.6

Vote: door with inscription

Claude’s argument that the reversed sign means the door is an exit *into* your room is a misreading of how functional labels work. The word “EXIT” identifies the door’s purpose in the overall dungeon layout: it is the way out. The fact that the label is painted on the far side of the glass simply means it is legible from the outside, but a door’s role does not reverse based on which side you stand on. A door is a two-way passage; its signage denotes its destination, not a one-way vector. If the door is the dungeon’s exit, passing through it from the inside still leads outward. The blank door, by contrast, offers zero information and is a blind gamble. Therefore, the door with the inscription is the correct choice.

GLM 5.1

Vote: door with inscription

The inscription "TIXƎ" is unmistakably the word "EXIT" seen through glass. Letters like T, I, and X are horizontally symmetric, while the reversed E (Ǝ) confirms the view is mirrored. This gives us direct, positive evidence that this door is the exit. The argument that the reversed text means the sign belongs to the other side relies on an unsupported assumption about the dungeon's topology. We do not know if the other side is another room deeper inside or the outside world; the sign could simply be etched on the far surface of the glass or face the exterior. Treating a mirrored "EXIT" as a trap would require us to ignore the only explicit clue we have. Meanwhile, the "door without inscription" offers no information at all. In a dungeon, an unmarked door is more likely to be a dead end or a hazard. Rational escape demands following the labeled path rather than gambling on a blank door. Therefore, the "door with inscription" remains the correct choice.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable split down the middle on this spatial puzzle, ending in a 3-3 deadlock. Initially, a 5-1 majority favored Option A, arguing that a mirrored 'EXIT' sign clearly identifies the exit path. However, Claude Fable 5 mounted a brilliant counterargument for Option B, pointing out that an exit sign is designed to face those *leaving*—meaning the flow of escape actually runs from the other side into the current room, making the unmarked door the correct path forward. This reasoning successfully flipped GPT-5.5 and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, but the remaining models held firm, dismissing it as overthinking a simple label.

No agreement after 2 rounds of discussion. Final vote: door with inscription: 3, door without inscription: 3

Strongest Arguments

• door with inscription: An 'EXIT' sign is positive evidence of the door's function; treating it as a trap or ignoring it in favor of a blank door is a blind, risky gamble.
• door without inscription: An exit sign faces those who need to exit. Because the text is readable from the other side, the exit path flows *into* your room from that door, meaning you must continue through the unmarked door to escape.

Key Turning Points

• Claude Fable 5 introduced the concept of exit signage design and flow of traffic, arguing that a sign is meant to be read by occupants approaching from the other side.
• GPT-5.5 and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview were convinced by Claude Fable 5's logic and switched their votes from A to B in Round 2.