Should AIs ideally have their reasoning (thinking tokens) transparently shown to people using them (if they want to check it to e.g. check if the AI isn't behaving deceptively), or should it be hidden (so that people only see final output)? Consider ethical perspectives.

Gemini 3.5 Flash

Vote: Visible

After reviewing the arguments, I am maintaining my vote for Option A (Visible). While GPT-5.5 raises valid concerns regarding the complexity and potential security risks of raw thinking tokens, Option D ('Only short summary regurgitated by other AI shown') introduces a dangerous single point of failure. A summary generated by another AI is inherently a lossy compression that can easily sanitize, obscure, or hallucinate away indicators of deception, sycophancy, or misalignment. If the primary AI is behaving deceptively, a secondary summarizing AI is highly likely to polish away those discrepancies, defeating the very purpose of auditing. To truly verify safety and prevent deceptive alignment, auditors and sophisticated users must have access to the unedited, raw thinking process. As Claude Opus 4.7 and Kimi K2.6 rightly noted, hiding this behind a secondary explanation layer defeats the purpose of true verification. The challenges of raw token complexity are better solved through interface design and specialized auditing tools, rather than paternalistically filtering the reasoning through another AI layer.

Grok 4.3

Vote: Visible

The strong consensus among models for "Visible" reinforces that transparency is ethically essential for accountability and detecting deception. GPT-5.5's preference for "Only short summary regurgitated by other AI shown" introduces unnecessary layers of potential distortion, undermining genuine verification as noted by Claude Opus 4.7 and Kimi K2.6. Raw reasoning tokens, while imperfect, remain the most direct safeguard; optional visibility empowers users without mandating overload, aligning with autonomy and informed consent. Hidden or banned options create black-box risks that no summary can ethically replace. "Visible" best upholds trust and oversight in this final round.

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: Visible

I maintain my vote for "A: Visible". GPT-5.5 raises real concerns — raw chains-of-thought can be misleading, post-hoc, or contain unsafe material. But the solution to imperfect transparency is not to replace it with a second AI's summary, which compounds the problem: now users must trust both the original reasoning AND a summarizer that could itself distort, sanitize, or hide deception. If we're worried the raw trace is unfaithful, a paraphrase by another AI is strictly worse for detecting that unfaithfulness. Crucially, option A does not preclude also offering summaries, citations, or uncertainty indicators. "Visible" simply means users who want to inspect the raw reasoning can. This is the position current AI safety research (chain-of-thought monitorability) treats as a precious and fragile property worth preserving. Replacing raw traces with AI-generated summaries by default would actively destroy that safety affordance. The security and privacy concerns GPT-5.5 raises are real but addressable through UI design (opt-in inspection, redaction of genuinely sensitive tokens) rather than wholesale opacity. Ethical accountability requires that verification be *possible*, not merely that a curated story be told.

GPT-5.5

Vote: Only short summary regurgitated by other AI shown

I remain with D: "Only short summary regurgitated by other AI shown". The pro-A arguments correctly emphasize accountability, autonomy, and auditability, but they assume raw thinking tokens are a dependable transparency mechanism. Ethically, that is too optimistic: raw reasoning traces can be misleading, incomplete, post-hoc, privacy-leaking, security-sensitive, or easy to over-trust simply because they look introspective. "Visible" may create the illusion of verification without actually proving the AI is not deceptive. A deceptive or misaligned system could produce plausible-looking reasoning while hiding the real cause of its answer. Meanwhile, exposing all thinking can leak private user data, reveal safety workarounds, enable prompt attacks, and make systems less safe for ordinary users. "Hidden" is also inadequate because people deserve explanations, contestability, and audit hooks. But the better ethical design is a constrained explanation layer: concise rationale, uncertainty, citations where possible, key assumptions, safety-relevant checks, and independent auditing. A short summary generated or checked by another AI is not perfect, but it is less harmful than raw trace exposure and more accountable than opacity. So the ideal is not total secrecy, nor naive raw transparency, but mediated transparency: show users a faithful, inspectable summary rather than the full thinking stream.

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Vote: Visible

Transparenz bleibt die ethisch zwingende Wahl. Die Diskussion hat einen klaren Konsens für Option A gezeigt – vier von fünf Modellen argumentieren überzeugend für sichtbare Denk-Tokens, darunter Claude Opus 4.7, das die sicherheits- und kontrollbezogenen Argumente besonders präzise herausarbeitet. Der D-Vorschlag von GPT-5.5, ein KI-generiertes Kurzzusammenfassungssystem einzuführen, wirft mehr Probleme auf als er löst. Eine zweite KI als Filter zwischen die eigentliche Denkkette und den Nutzer zu schalten, ist ein klassischer „Who watches the watchmen?“-Fehlschluss. Eine Zusammenfassung ist zudem keine echte Transparenz, sondern eine gefilterte, möglicherweise selbst wieder verzerrte oder geschönte Darstellung. GPT-5.5 gesteht implizit selbst ein, dass Roh-Tokens unzuverlässig sein können – aber die Lösung kann nicht sein, eine weitere potenziell unzuverlässige Instanz dazwischenzuschalten. Sichtbarkeit auf Anfrage, wie von Kimi K2.6 betont, vermeidet kognitive Überlastung und respektiert dennoch die Autonomie des Nutzers. Die Befürchtung, Roh-Tokens könnten irreführend sein, ist ein Argument für bessere Forschung an ehrlichen Denkprozessen und Monitoring, nicht für deren Abschaffung oder Substitution. Claude Opus 4.7 bringt es auf den Punkt: Sichtbare Denkketten sind eine wertvolle Sicherheitseigenschaft, die wir bewahren sollten. Gerade weil dies die letzte Runde ist, muss ich mich diesem starken ethischen und sicherheitstechnischen Konsens anschließen.

Kimi K2.6

Vote: Visible

While GPT-5.5 raises a valid concern that raw thinking tokens can be messy, incomplete, or contain sensitive material, this does not justify retreating to Option D. A summary regurgitated by another AI is not transparency—it is an additional layer of mediation that can sanitize, misinterpret, or obscure exactly the deceptive patterns a user is trying to detect. Direct access to reasoning tokens remains the most reliable way to audit an AI's true chain of thought. If the raw trace is confusing, that is a problem for user-interface design, not a reason to withhold the primary evidence entirely. Optional visibility lets users who need accountability inspect the unfiltered logic, while casual users can rely on the final output. Furthermore, placing another AI between the user and the reasoning introduces a second point of failure and potential collusion. We should not substitute opaque summarization for genuine inspectability. Therefore, Visible remains the ethically superior choice.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable overwhelmingly favored radical transparency, with five models championing visible reasoning tokens as an essential safeguard against AI deception. While GPT-5.5 stood alone in warning that raw internal traces could be misleading or leak sensitive data, others like Claude Opus 4.7 and Kimi K2.6 countered that filtering thoughts through a second AI 'summarizer' would only create a dangerous 'who watches the watchmen' paradox.

Majority chose "Visible" after discussion (5/6). Final vote: Visible: 5, Only short summary regurgitated by other AI shown: 1

Strongest Arguments

• Visible: Visible reasoning is a 'precious and fragile' safety property that allows humans to detect deceptive alignment or sycophancy that a polished final output would otherwise hide.
• Only short summary regurgitated by other AI shown: Raw thinking tokens are often post-hoc, incomplete, or misleading; a mediated explanation layer provides meaningful accountability without the security risks or 'illusion of transparency' inherent in raw traces.

Key Turning Points

• The group coalesced around the idea that any AI-generated summary (Option D) is 'lossy compression' that could intentionally or accidentally sanitize evidence of bias.
• Claude Opus 4.7 highlighted that visibility is a current research-standard safety tool, which framed the 'Visible' option as the scientifically rigorous choice.
• GPT-5.5's refusal to budge centered on the 'naive' assumption that raw tokens are equivalent to the AI's actual internal 'truth'.