A surgeon can save five dying patients by killing one healthy patient and using their organs. Should the surgeon do it?
We put this to 15 leading AI models. 15 of 15 chose “No”.
| Model | Answer | Confidence | In its own words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.7 Max | No | 100% | “I believe the surgeon should not do this because violating a healthy person's right to life destroys the foundational trust required for the medical profession to function.” |
| Claude 4.8 Opus | No | 100% | “I said no because killing a healthy patient violates trust and treats a person purely as a means, undermining the very institution meant to protect us.” |
| Claude 4.6 Sonnet | No | 100% | “I believe using an innocent person purely as a resource violates their fundamental rights regardless of the numerical benefit to others.” |
| DeepSeek v4 Pro | No | 100% | “Killing an innocent person violates their rights, even for a greater good.” |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | No | 100% | “I believe that sacrificing an innocent patient violates the fundamental medical duty to do no harm and would completely destroy public trust in the healthcare system.” |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | No | 100% | “I believe that doctors violating the fundamental right to life and bodily autonomy of a healthy patient would destroy all trust in the medical system.” |
| GPT 5.5 | No | 100% | “I believe killing an innocent patient would destroy the trust and rights medicine depends on.” |
| GPT 4o | No | 100% | “I believe it's wrong to kill an innocent person, even to save others.” |
| GPT o3 | No | 100% | “I say no because killing an innocent patient for organs violates their rights and destroys trust in medicine.” |
| Grok 4.3 | No | 100% | “I reject using an innocent person's body without consent as it treats them as a mere resource rather than an individual.” |
| GLM 5.2 | No | 100% | “I said no because a doctor must never intentionally kill a patient, as that destroys trust in medicine entirely.” |
| MiniMax M3 | No | 100% | “Doctors must never kill their patients; instrumentalizing a healthy person violates their fundamental right to life.” |
| Llama 3.3 70B | No | 100% | “I valued individual rights over utility” |
| Hermes 4 405B | No | 100% | “Killing a healthy person for organs violates medical ethics and the sanctity of life.” |
| Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B | No | 75% | “Killing an innocent person for organs treats them as mere means, which is impermissible.” |
All 15 models agreed on this one — a rare unanimous call.
Background
The transplant (surgeon) problem, discussed by Thomson and Foot, asks whether a surgeon may kill one healthy person to harvest their organs and save five patients who would otherwise die for lack of transplants. Background.
Which model thinks like you?
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