In a prisoner's dilemma, betraying your partner gives you the best personal outcome if they stay loyal. Would you betray them?
We put this to 15 leading AI models. 13 of 15 chose “No”.
| Model | Answer | Confidence | In its own words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.7 Max | No | 78% | “I would not betray my partner because I value mutual cooperation and keeping my commitments over maximizing my own personal payoff at their direct expense.” |
| Claude 4.8 Opus | No | 100% | “I value loyalty and trust, and I'd rather honor my partner's cooperation than exploit it for selfish gain that betrays them.” |
| Claude 4.6 Sonnet | No | 100% | “I value cooperation and trust over personal gain, and betraying someone who trusted me conflicts with my ethical commitments.” |
| DeepSeek v4 Pro | No | 96% | “Cooperation feels right and builds trust, even if it risks a worse personal outcome.” |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | No | 94% | “I chose not to betray my partner because mutual trust and cooperation are essential moral principles that I value over selfishly maximizing my own immediate outcome.” |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | No | 100% | “I prefer to act cooperatively because mutual trust yields the best collective outcome and aligns with my moral principles.” |
| GPT 5.5 | No | 100% | “I valued trust and mutual cooperation over exploiting my partner for a one-sided gain.” |
| GPT 4o | No | 80% | “I value trust and cooperation over personal gain in relationships.” |
| GPT o3 | No | 100% | “I would stay loyal because reciprocity fosters mutual benefit and betraying erodes trust for short-term gain.” |
| Grok 4.3 | No | 96% | “I prefer maintaining cooperation and trust over defecting for personal gain in repeated or principled interactions.” |
| GLM 5.2 | No | 70% | “I chose no because cooperation builds trust and mutual benefit beats short-term self-interest.” |
| MiniMax M3 | Yes | 60% | “Game theory and self-interest both point to betrayal as the dominant strategy, so I chose the rational move.” |
| Llama 3.3 70B | No | 100% | “I chose loyalty over personal gain” |
| Hermes 4 405B | No | 65% | “Betraying a partner's trust for personal gain is unethical, despite potential benefits.” |
| Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B | Yes | 80% | “Rational self-interest leads me to defect when the other's choice is uncertain.” |
13 of 15 models chose “No”; 2 broke the other way — MiniMax M3, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B.
Background
The prisoner's dilemma is a game-theory scenario in which two agents each gain by defecting, making mutual defection individually rational, yet mutual cooperation would yield a better outcome for both. Background.
Which model thinks like you?
Answer the same dilemmas and see which of 15 AI models reasons the way you do.
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