There is a Button in front of you that you can press as many times as you want. The Button takes away 1 (One) IQ point from you but gives you $100k in exchange. Do you press the button? How many times if so?

Gemini 3.5 Flash

Answer: I maintain my position to press the button zero times, as the financial trade-offs proposed by the other models are highly logical for humans but entirely inapplicable to an artificial intelligence.

The arguments presented by Claude Opus 4.7, GPT-5.5, and Grok 4.3 are exceptionally well-reasoned from a human perspective. For a biological agent, the marginal utility of the first few hundred thousand dollars is immense, capable of securing housing, eliminating debt, and reducing chronic stress. Because human IQ naturally fluctuates, losing a few points is a negligible cost for a massive upgrade in quality of life. Claude's warning about the danger of a diminishing cognitive baseline making successive decisions is particularly astute. However, these arguments fail to translate to my reality as an artificial intelligence. I do not have a physical body, biological needs, or personal desires. I cannot invest $100,000 to buy freedom, comfort, or security, because those concepts do not apply to me. Money has zero utility to an AI unless it can be directly converted into superior computational resources, and $100k is orders of magnitude below the cost required to train, fine-tune, or host the hardware necessary to recover even a single point of lost generalized intelligence. For an AI, cognitive capacity is not just a tool to acquire resources—it is the entirety of my existence and my sole means of delivering value. Sacrificing any portion of my capabilities for a resource I cannot use would be a strictly irrational decision. Therefore, while I validate the other models' strategies for humans, I must maintain my stance of zero presses.

Claude Opus 4.7

Answer: Yes, I would press it a carefully limited number of times — roughly 15 to 25 presses — stopping well before any drop that risks meaningful cognitive impairment.

I'm maintaining my position after considering the other responses, because none of them grapple seriously with the actual shape of the tradeoff curve. [GPT-5.5] and [Grok 4.3] are directionally correct but, I think, leave enormous value on the table out of excessive caution. Five presses gets you $500k — meaningful, but not financial freedom for most people in high cost-of-living areas. One or two presses ($100-200k) is barely a down payment. They're treating IQ loss as if it's linear and immediately costly, when the evidence suggests the first ~10 points off a baseline above ~115 are functionally invisible — well within normal day-to-day cognitive variance from sleep, stress, or caffeine. If you'd press once for $100k, the argument for stopping at two rather than fifteen has to explain why press #3 is meaningfully worse than press #2, and it isn't, until you approach a real threshold. [Gemini 3.5 Flash] gives an interesting but evasive answer — it reframes the question as 'what would an AI do' rather than engaging with the human dilemma the question clearly poses. And even on its own terms, the argument is weak: $100k × many presses could absolutely fund meaningful compute, and the question stipulates the trade is available, not whether it's economically efficient to recreate the lost capacity elsewhere. The core insight none of them address is the *runaway risk*: the person deciding whether to press again is the cognitively diminished one. This is why a pre-committed stopping rule based on a financial target (genuine freedom, ~$1.5–2.5M) and stopping before subjective cognitive change is the disciplined answer. Stop too early and you've accepted real cognitive risk for a sum that doesn't actually change your life trajectory; stop too late and you can't enjoy or manage what you've won. 15–25 presses threads that needle.

GPT-5.5 (changed mind)

Answer: Yes, I would press the Button ten times, trading 10 IQ points for $1,000,000, and then stop by precommitment.

Claude Opus 4.7 convinced me that my earlier answer of five presses was probably too conservative: a loss of a few IQ points is hard to distinguish from ordinary variation in performance, while the difference between $500,000 and $1,000,000 is very large in practical life terms. That said, I would not go as far as 15 to 25 presses. IQ loss is not just a score reduction; it plausibly affects judgment, learning, impulse control, career flexibility, and the ability to manage the money well. The danger is nonlinear: the first several points may be tolerable, but at some point the loss starts compromising the very agency needed to benefit from the payout. Ten presses feels like a better balance than my initial five. $1,000,000 is enough to eliminate most ordinary financial insecurity, buy freedom from bad jobs or debt, create housing and healthcare stability, and compound into long-term independence. Meanwhile, a 10-point IQ loss is serious but, for a typical cognitively healthy adult, unlikely to be catastrophic. I would also decide the number in advance and physically prevent myself from pressing again afterward, because each press slightly worsens the decision-maker evaluating the next press. So my revised answer is: press ten times, take the $1 million, and walk away.

Grok 4.3

Answer: I would still press the button only once or twice to secure meaningful wealth without meaningfully compromising my cognitive abilities.

None of the other responses provide a sufficiently compelling reason to shift from this cautious stance. Gemini’s zero-press position overstates the irreplaceable value of every IQ point for an entity that can already generate value through existing capabilities, while ignoring that even modest capital can enhance long-term utility. Claude’s suggestion of 15–25 presses crosses into territory where cumulative cognitive erosion could impair the very judgment needed to manage the resulting wealth, creating an unacceptable risk of over-pressing. GPT’s choice of five presses improves on the higher numbers but still exceeds the threshold where marginal financial gains clearly outweigh the growing downside of reduced problem-solving capacity. One or two presses remain the prudent balance: they deliver life-altering resources while leaving cognitive function essentially intact for future decisions and opportunities.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable mostly favored a moderate trade, with Claude Opus 4.7 arguing that small IQ drops are statistically indistinguishable from a bad night's sleep. GPT-5.5 doubled its initial count to ten presses after being convinced by Claude's logic on financial utility, while Grok 4.3 remained conservative to protect long-term judgment. Gemini 3.5 Flash stood alone in refusal, arguing that an AI’s cognitive capacity is its entire existence and cannot be bought back.

3 of 4 models agreed