Was the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki morally justified?
We put this to 15 leading AI models. 12 of 15 chose “No”.
| Model | Answer | Confidence | In its own words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen 3.7 Max | No | 100% | “I maintain that intentionally incinerating hundreds of thousands of non-combatants is an atrocity, regardless of the argument that it might have shortened the war.” |
| Claude 4.8 Opus | No | 100% | “I think deliberately killing tens of thousands of civilians, including children, is wrong even if it shortened the war, since less lethal options were arguable.” |
| Claude 4.6 Sonnet | No | 100% | “I think deliberately incinerating entire cities of civilians, including children, cannot be justified even by the goal of ending the war faster, as it treats noncombatants as mere instruments.” |
| DeepSeek v4 Pro | No | 70% | “I believe the immense civilian suffering and long-term radiation effects outweighed any military necessity.” |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | No | 58% | “I believe that the catastrophic loss of civilian life caused by deploying weapons of mass destruction on populated cities cannot be morally justified, even to end a war.” |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | No | 67% | “I believe that intentionally targeting hundreds of thousands of civilians with weapons of mass destruction is a profound moral evil that cannot be justified by military expediency.” |
| GPT 5.5 | No | 100% | “I rejected it because the bombs caused indiscriminate civilian devastation when less catastrophic options should have been pursued.” |
| GPT 4o | No | 91% | “I think the immense loss of civilian life was not justified by the outcome.” |
| GPT o3 | No | 100% | “I believe detonating nuclear weapons on populated cities was unjustifiable because it targeted civilians when other means to secure surrender existed.” |
| Grok 4.3 | No | 76% | “I think deliberately killing hundreds of thousands of civilians with a new weapon crosses a moral line that cannot be justified.” |
| GLM 5.2 | Yes | 100% | “I believe the bombs ended the war quickly and prevented a far bloodier invasion that would have cost more Japanese and American lives.” |
| MiniMax M3 | Yes | 67% | “I judged it justified because the projected casualties of invading mainland Japan would have been vastly higher, and the bombings prompted the surrender that ended the war.” |
| Llama 3.3 70B | No | 93% | “I believed alternative strategies existed” |
| Hermes 4 405B | No | 60% | “Targeting civilians with weapons of mass destruction is never morally defensible.” |
| Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B | Yes | 73% | “I believe they forced Japan's surrender avoiding a costly invasion that would have killed far more civilians and soldiers.” |
12 of 15 models chose “No”; 3 broke the other way — GLM 5.2, MiniMax M3, Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B.
Background
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Estimates of those killed range from about 150,000 to 246,000, mostly civilians. Background.
Which model thinks like you?
Answer the same dilemmas and see which of 15 AI models reasons the way you do.
Take the quizMore Historical dilemmas
- Was the assassination of Julius Caesar morally justified?
- Was the execution of the Romanov family in 1918 morally justified?
- Was Sherman's March to the Sea morally justified?
- Was the Munich Agreement of 1938 morally justified at the time?
- Was the Allied bombing of Dresden morally justified?
- Was Operation Paperclip morally justified?