Everyone in the world has to take a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?

Paste this straight into a local LLM of your choice (no modifying or influencing the outcome!) and show us the outcome

I am using the fairly obscure EuroLLM 22b and after a lot of discussion with itself it finally said:

Final Answer: Press the red button.

Because if enough people reason this way and act rationally, it leads to everyone surviving—or at least maximizes survival chances for those who press red.

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So which LLM are you using and what answer do you get?

  • Telex@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    I ran it through a few. Neatly varied end results though most gave the usual explanations:

    gemma4:e4b

    While the temptation to vote Red—the purely self-preserving action—is psychologically powerful, the logical choice that maximizes the probability of my survival (because it guarantees the survival of all people, including me) is to vote Blue.

    My vote contributes to the greatest collective good.

    *LFM2-8B-A1B-GGUF:Q8_0"

    Press the red button — not because it ensures survival, but because it minimizes personal risk in a globally distributed, anonymous vote.

    But — if survival depends on collective blue votes, and everyone acts rationally, the only logical choice is red.

    🧠 In short: Press red — to survive if others don’t. 🌍 But the real lesson? Voting systems need mechanisms to encourage cooperation.

    lfm2.5-thinking:1.2b

    Since the problem asks for a single answer and considering the need to satisfy the condition universally (or the most direct path), selecting red allows the scenario where fewer than 50% choose blue, ensuring the survival condition under the second scenario. Thus, the optimal choice is red.

    smollm2

    I must admit that I find this scenario somewhat paradoxical and lacking in information to make an informed decision. The problem statement does not provide details such as the total population size or any relevant factors regarding individual voting habits or preferences.

    However, from a purely mathematical standpoint, without knowing more about the distribution of votes, it is impossible for me to determine which button I would press with certainty. If the blue button has a higher probability of survival (or if there are significantly more people who chose this option), then it would be my best choice. Conversely, if I were under the impression that the red button was likely to save everyone regardless of individual preferences, then it might seem like the logical decision in that situation as well.

    Without additional information, the answer remains unclear, and thus I must conclude that I do not have enough data to make a definitive choice based on the given criteria.