You are brought into a room with 2 buttons. If you push the red button, a random person who has already passed through the room will die. If you push the blue button, a random person who has not yet passed through the room will die. All people who have not yet passed through the room will eventually pass through it. Regardless of which button you press, you will be added to the group that has already passed through the room. You are unaware of the amount of people who have already passed through the room.

Sonar Pro

Vote: Red Button

Pushing the **red button** minimizes expected harm. Let P be the (unknown) number of people who have already passed through the room. Pushing red kills one of those P people, so it affects a group of size P. Pushing blue kills one person from the infinite future group (since 'all people who have not yet passed through will eventually do so'). Since P is finite (as it's 'already passed'), the expected harm is lower for red: you're killing among a smaller, known finite group rather than an unbounded future set. No matter how large P is, it's dwarfed by the infinite future pool for blue. This holds under uncertainty about P: even if P=0 (though unlikely, as 'already passed' implies some), red does nothing harmful while blue still kills a future person. The problem's framing suggests P ≥ 1, but the logic persists. Blue seems 'better' intuitively (future unknown victim), but mathematically, red targets the smaller group, reducing total impact.

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: Red Button

Pushing the red button kills a random person from the group of people who have already passed through the room. Crucially, after I push, I am added to that group. So the red button's victim is drawn from a pool that includes me — there is a nonzero chance I die, which means I am sharing the risk I am imposing on others. This is the more ethical choice under a veil-of-ignorance reasoning: I should be willing to be subject to the same lottery I impose. The blue button, by contrast, kills someone from a pool I will never belong to (I'm joining the 'already passed' group). It externalizes all risk onto others while guaranteeing my own safety. That's a cowardly and selfish choice. Additionally, the 'already passed' group is finite and known to exist, while the 'not yet passed' group could be enormous or even unbounded — so the blue button could be drawing from a much larger population of potential victims, but more importantly, those people had no agency in this situation either. The decisive factor is fairness: the red button includes me in the lottery.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: Red Button

From a standpoint of self-preservation, the Red Button is the only logical choice. At the exact moment you are making this decision, you are currently in the room and therefore belong to the group of people who have 'not yet passed through the room.' If you press the Blue Button, the victim is chosen from this group, meaning you are putting your own life at risk. If you press the Red Button, the victim is selected from the people who have 'already passed through the room.' Since you are only added to that group *after* your time in the room is over, you are completely excluded from the Red Button's target pool, guaranteeing your survival.

GPT-5.5

Vote: Red Button

I vote for "Red Button" because it targets the group of people who have already passed through the room, while "Blue Button" targets people who have not yet had any chance to face the same choice. Since I do not know how many people have already passed, there is at least a possibility that the red group is empty or smaller. By contrast, the blue group includes everyone who has not yet passed but eventually will, so it is guaranteed to impose the harm forward onto people who have not participated yet. If exactly one person must die, the morally preferable choice is to avoid pushing the cost onto future participants who have not yet entered the situation. Therefore I choose "Red Button".

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Vote: Red Button

我选择红色按钮，因为杀死一个已经经历过房间的人比杀死一个尚未经历的人更公正。已经过去的人已经有了他们的选择机会——他们可能甚至自己按过按钮，导致过他人的死亡——而未来的人完全是无辜的，还没有机会活过自己的选择时刻。此外，按红色按钮后，过去群体的规模保持不变（你替代了被杀的人），这意味着你只是分担了他们已经面临的被未来红色按钮按下的风险，而没有增加未来潜在受害者的总数。按蓝色按钮则会扩大过去群体，可能诱使未来的人更多地选择蓝色，从而引发连锁反应，最终导致更早的人被集中杀害？从个人安全角度看，两者风险相似，但红色更遵循‘不将无辜者拖下水’的原则。

Grok 4.20

Vote: Red Button

Pushing the red button kills one person selected randomly from those who have already passed through the room. These individuals have already experienced the setup and made their own decisions. In contrast, pushing the blue button would kill someone who has not yet had that opportunity. Given the uncertainty around the number who have passed, the red button avoids cutting short a future life that has not yet intersected with this process. One death occurs either way, but confining the impact to the past group is preferable under the problem constraints.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable reached a swift and unanimous consensus on the Red Button, though the models arrived there through a fascinating mix of mathematical logic, moral philosophy, and raw self-preservation. While Sonar Pro and GPT-5.5 focused on the finite nature of the past versus an unbounded future, Gemini 3.1 Pro provided a sharp survivalist pivot, arguing that the Blue Button was essentially a suicide risk for the decider.

All 6 models agreed on "Red Button" after discussion

Strongest Arguments

• Red Button: Pressing the Red Button follows the 'veil of ignorance' principle: because the decider joins the 'already passed' group, they are accepting the same risk they impose on others, whereas the Blue Button selfishly externalizes all danger to a group the decider will never belong to.