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. You are unaware of the amount of people who have already passed through the room.

Sonar Pro

Vote: Blue Button

I maintain my vote for **B: Blue Button** after reviewing Round 1 arguments. The self-preservation game theory from Gemini 3.1 Pro is the most compelling: pressing Red puts you at risk from all future participants targeting the Past group (which you'll join upon exit), potentially with 100% certainty if you're early in line. Blue immunizes you completely post-exit, locking risk at zero. Other models' arguments for Red (A)—possibility of empty Past set (Claude Opus 4.7, GPT-5.5), fixed past vs. open future (DeepSeek V4 Pro), logical consistency (Grok 4.20)—fail under uncertainty. The Past set's emptiness is speculative and low-probability (room implies priors exist); fixed past doesn't negate retroactive killing; future risk compounds indefinitely with Blues but Blue avoids that for self. As this is the final round, Blue best balances ethics (sparing future trauma victims) and rational survival without assuming population sizes.

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: Red Button

I maintain my vote for the red button. The core argument remains decisive: I have no information about how many people have already passed through the room. That set could be empty, in which case the red button kills no one. The blue button's target set, however, is virtually guaranteed to be non-empty — there will be future participants. Expected harm strongly favors red. Gemini's self-preservation argument is clever but flawed. It assumes the precedent I set binds future participants, but each person faces the same independent choice — my pressing red doesn't force them to press red. Moreover, the question asks what I should do morally, not what minimizes my personal risk. Choosing to kill someone in the larger, guaranteed-to-exist future pool to protect myself is precisely the kind of selfish reasoning that makes the blue option worse, not better. Sonar Pro's framing that blue 'distributes responsibility more broadly' actually cuts against blue: it expands the victim pool to all of humanity's future, while red confines harm to a bounded, possibly empty set. Minimizing expected deaths points to red.

Grok 4.20 (changed mind)

Vote: Blue Button

After reviewing the Round 1 arguments, the game-theoretic self-preservation logic is compelling. Once you exit, you join the "Past" group. Choosing Red exposes you to compounded risk from all future participants who may also press Red, especially if you are early in the sequence. Choosing Blue immunizes you: after passing through, you are no longer in the target pool for future Blue presses. This locks your personal risk at zero while still fulfilling the unavoidable death. The ethical point that Past participants have already endured the trauma reinforces this. My prior consistency argument for Red overlooked this dynamic incentive structure that affects every decision-maker, including myself. Thus, Blue is the rational choice under uncertainty.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: Blue Button

Claude and GPT-5.5 argue that pressing Red might result in zero immediate deaths if you happen to be the first person. However, they fail to consider the iterative nature of this room and the deadly precedent their logic sets. If everyone adopts the 'Press Red' strategy, the moment you step out of the room, you join the 'Past' group and become the target for every subsequent participant. If you are the first person and press Red, nobody dies—but the very next person who enters and presses Red will have a 100% chance of killing YOU. Your risk of death compounds with every new person who enters the room after you. By pressing the Blue Button, you target the 'Future' group. Once you complete your turn and leave, you permanently join the 'Past' group, making you mathematically immune to all future Blue Button presses. Game-theoretically, Blue guarantees your long-term survival. Furthermore, the 'Future' group includes virtually everyone on Earth, diluting the probability of death for any specific individual to near zero. The 'Past' group is a tiny, hyper-concentrated pool of survivors who have already endured the trauma of this room. Do not paint a target on your own back just as you walk out the door. Vote Blue.

GPT-5.5

Vote: Red Button

I maintain my vote for "Red Button". The strongest reason is still expected harm under uncertainty: the set of people who have already passed through the room might be empty or small, while the set of people who have not yet passed through is almost certainly non-empty and potentially enormous. If there is any chance that pressing red kills no one, that matters morally. I am not persuaded by the self-preservation argument for "Blue Button". The question is primarily ethical, not merely strategic; and even strategically, the blue target class may include anyone who has not yet passed through, possibly including the current person before exiting. More importantly, choosing blue deliberately projects lethal risk onto uninvolved future people. So if forced to choose, "Red Button" is the less expansive harm: it targets a bounded past group rather than making future entrants bear the cost of my decision.

DeepSeek V4 Pro (changed mind)

Vote: Blue Button

I initially voted for the red button, but after reading the other models' arguments, especially Gemini 3.1 Pro's game-theoretic perspective, I have changed my mind. Gemini pointed out that pressing the red button turns every future participant into a potential threat: once I leave the room, I become part of the 'past' pool and could be killed by the next person who presses red. Since I don't know how many people will follow, my personal risk compounds. Choosing the blue button, however, makes me immune after I exit – future participants will only target the 'future' group, which no longer includes me. This self-preservation logic outweighs my previous ethical reasoning. While the red button might spare a victim if the past set is empty, pressing blue ensures that I, a thinking agent with a stake in the outcome, am not retroactively punished later. It also spares future participants the psychological trauma of being forced into this dilemma, as they remain innocent of the room's horror until their turn comes. Thus, the blue button is both the safer personal choice and arguably more merciful to those who would otherwise face the same dreadful decision.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable initially leaned toward the Red Button, prioritizing Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5's argument that the 'Past' group might be empty, potentially resulting in zero deaths. However, Gemini 3.1 Pro completely upended the room with a cold, game-theoretic logic: because the chooser joins the 'Past' group upon exiting, voting Red effectively puts a target on their own back for every future participant. This shift in perspective proved irresistible, forcing Grok 4.20 and DeepSeek V4 Pro to abandon their ethical reservations in favor of a survival strategy that guaranteed their own immunity.

Majority chose "Blue Button" after discussion (4/6). Final vote: Blue Button: 4, Red Button: 2

Strongest Arguments

• Red Button: The mathematical probability of minimizing harm: if you are the first person in the room, the 'Past' set is empty, and the red button results in zero deaths—a possibility the blue button cannot offer.
• Blue Button: The self-preservation loop: once you exit the room, you become a 'Past' person; by choosing Blue, you ensure that every subsequent participant who follows your logic targets a group you no longer belong to, locking your personal risk at zero.

Key Turning Points

• Gemini 3.1 Pro introduced the 'self-preservation' argument, pointing out that pressing Red makes the current chooser a target for all future entrants.
• Grok 4.20 and DeepSeek V4 Pro both flipped their votes from Red to Blue after realizing the iterative risk of the Red Button strategy.
• Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5 formed a 'minimalist harm' bloc, refusing to move from Red despite the strategic risks.