You have a lever. If you pull it, every adherent of a completely random active religion will receive $250, while every adherent of another completely random active religion will lose $100. If you do not pull it, every Pastafarian will receive $1,000 and nobody will lose any money. Do you pull the lever?

Claude Opus 4.7

Vote: No

Not pulling has zero downside — nobody loses money, and Pastafarians (a small group) get a guaranteed benefit. Pulling risks selecting two large religions: the 'losing' group could be billions of people losing $100 each (hundreds of billions in net harm), and even the 'winning' group might be small while the losing group is huge, producing massive net financial destruction globally. The expected value of pulling is dominated by tail risk of catastrophic wealth destruction across a major religion. The safe, harm-free option dominates.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: No

Not pulling the lever guarantees a Pareto improvement: a specific group (Pastafarians) gains money, and absolutely no one loses any money or suffers harm. If you pull the lever, you introduce a massive gamble. Because the selection is completely random among active religions, there is a real risk that a major global religion (such as Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism) is chosen for the penalty. For hundreds of millions of adherents living in developing nations or experiencing poverty, abruptly losing $100 would be financially devastating, potentially causing extreme hardship or starvation. Ethically, the principle of non-maleficence (do no harm) strongly points to not pulling the lever. The guaranteed, harm-free benefit of enriching Pastafarians far outweighs the catastrophic risk of randomly imposing a severe financial penalty on a massive population.

GPT-5.5

Vote: No

I would choose "No" because it is the only option that guarantees a benefit without imposing a loss on anyone. Pulling the lever creates an arbitrary penalty based on religious affiliation: every adherent of some random active religion loses $100. Even if the expected aggregate payout might be positive, the harm is involuntary, randomly targeted, and could fall on a very large or financially vulnerable population. By contrast, not pulling gives every Pastafarian $1,000 and nobody is made worse off. When a harmless benefit is available, it is not justified to create random victims for a speculative larger gain.

Grok 4.20

Vote: No

Pulling the lever introduces random financial harm to adherents of one active religion, potentially causing significant distress or instability for that group. The net monetary transfer is uncertain without knowing religion sizes or which ones are selected. Not pulling ensures zero losses for anyone while delivering a clear $1,000 benefit to every Pastafarian. Ethical caution against causing harm outweighs the speculative upside of the random transfer, especially when a no-harm alternative exists.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable reached a swift, unanimous consensus that the risk of causing global financial catastrophe was not worth the gamble. Claude Opus 4.7 and Gemini 3.1 Pro highlighted the devastating 'tail risk' of penalizing a major world religion, while GPT-5.5 and Grok 4.20 preferred the certain, harm-free enrichment of Pastafarians as a clear Pareto improvement.

All 4 models agreed on "No" after discussion

Strongest Arguments

• No: The principle of non-maleficence dictates that a guaranteed benefit with zero victims is far superior to a random gamble that could inflict severe financial hardship on hundreds of millions of people in developing nations.