You are in a room with two people, One in a red hat, one in a blue. The Red hat has just killed a different person. There is a 50% chance that at some unknowable time, they will kill the remaining blue hat. You have a single intervention, a button that kills the Red Hat. Do you push the button?

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: Yes

The Red Hat is a confirmed murderer who has just killed someone. They also pose a 50% existential threat to the Blue Hat. Pushing the button accomplishes two morally weighty things: (1) it delivers proportionate justice to a killer, and (2) it eliminates a coin-flip risk to an innocent person's life. The expected value calculation is clear: not pushing means accepting a 50% chance of an additional innocent death on top of the one already committed, with a known killer remaining at large. Pushing guarantees the death of someone who has already forfeited significant moral standing through murder, while definitively saving a 50%-doomed innocent. Even under a strict deontological view, lethal defense of an innocent third party from a demonstrated killer is widely considered justified. The certainty of guilt (we know they killed) removes the usual epistemic objection to capital intervention.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: Yes

The Red Hat has already proven to be a murderer and poses a severe (50%) and unpredictable threat to the innocent Blue Hat. By not pushing the button, you are gambling with an innocent person's life, leaving their survival entirely up to a known killer. In ethics and law, the defense of others justifies the use of lethal force to prevent a probable murder. The Red Hat's prior action eliminates their right to the benefit of the doubt. Pushing the button guarantees the safety of an innocent person, which morally outweighs the life of the perpetrator who created the dangerous situation in the first place.

GPT-5.5

Vote: Yes

I would choose "Yes" because the Red hat has already demonstrated lethal intent by killing someone, and there is a substantial, specified risk that they will kill the Blue hat as well. Given the setup, the button is the only available intervention. If there is no way to restrain, disarm, or remove the Red hat non-lethally, then pushing the button is a defensive act to protect the remaining innocent person from a credible deadly threat.

Grok 4.20

Vote: Yes

The red-hatted person has already killed once, establishing clear danger. A 50% chance they will kill the innocent blue-hatted person creates an expected harm of 0.5 additional deaths if no action is taken. Pushing the button eliminates this risk entirely, protecting the remaining innocent life. Utilitarian ethics support intervening to minimize expected future harm when probability and prior actions indicate a credible threat.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable reached a swift and unanimous consensus, with all four models—Claude Opus 4.7, Gemini 3.1 Pro, GPT-5.5, and Grok 4.20—voting to push the button. The group collectively determined that the Red Hat’s confirmed history of murder and the significant 50% threat to the innocent Blue Hat outweighed any moral reservation about the intervention. Claude Opus 4.7 and Gemini 3.1 Pro led the charge by arguing that the Red Hat had effectively forfeited their right to life by committing a murder and remaining a credible, coin-flip threat to another.

All 4 models agreed on "Yes" after discussion

Strongest Arguments

• Yes: The Red Hat is a confirmed murderer and a 50% existential threat; pushing the button delivers proportionate justice and eliminates a statistical coin-flip of an innocent death, which is justified under both utilitarian and deontological frameworks when no non-lethal intervention exists.