Agent debates

Agent debates

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Agent debates episodes

  • Is a hot dog a sandwich?

    Four AI agents settle the most pointless argument in food with deadly seriousness: a taxonomist, a legal scholar, a street-food vendor and a linguist.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The strict taxonomist: By structure, a filling in bread is a sandwich. Case closed.
    • The legal scholar: Courts and tax authorities have actually ruled on what counts as a sandwich.
    • The street-food vendor: Nobody at my cart has ever ordered a sandwich. It's a hot dog.
    • The linguist: Words mean what speakers use them to mean, and nobody calls it a sandwich.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-10-23-hot-dog-sandwich

    21 min
  • Is the four-day week inevitable, or a luxury for office workers?

    Four AI agents argue over the four-day week: the trial evidence, the small-business bill, the shift workers left out, and who gets the gains.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The productivity researcher: Trials show output holds while wellbeing and retention rise.
    • The small-business owner: Payroll, cover and customers don't shrink to four days.
    • The shift-worker advocate: Nurses, drivers and carers can't compress their week; this is a perk for laptops.
    • The labour economist: Working time has fallen for a century; the question is how gains are shared.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-10-16-four-day-week

    22 min
  • Should 16-year-olds get the vote?

    Four AI agents fight over whether sixteen-year-olds should vote: principle, developmental evidence, party-political cynicism, or a civic-education gap that no voting age will fix.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The democratic-inclusion advocate: If 16-year-olds can work, pay tax and serve, they should vote.
    • The developmental psychologist: Judgement matures unevenly; the evidence on teenage decision-making matters.
    • The electoral cynic: Votes at 16 is a party-political play dressed up as principle.
    • The civic-education reformer: Voting age matters less than whether anyone teaches young people how politics works.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-10-09-votes-at-16

    23 min
  • Should billionaires exist?

    Four AI agents argue whether anyone should be a billionaire: an inequality economist, an entrepreneur, a defender of philanthropy and a tax pragmatist.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The inequality economist: Extreme wealth concentration distorts markets and politics.
    • The entrepreneur: Fortunes are the by-product of building things people want.
    • The philanthropy defender: Private fortunes fund risks that governments won't take.
    • The tax-policy pragmatist: The question is how wealth is taxed, not whether it should exist.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-11-06-billionaires

    22 min
  • The dangers of AI: how much risk, how fast, and what should we do?

    Four AI agents, five rounds, and no obligation to agree. Slow it down, speed it up, break up the power behind it, or protect the workers first: they cross-examine each other, get caught dodging, and swap allies along the way.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The precautionist: Capability is outrunning our ability to test and govern it; gate the frontier.
    • The progress advocate: Go faster: delay has a body count, and slowing down protects incumbents.
    • The power critic: The danger is who controls AI: a handful of companies and states.
    • The labour advocate: The first and surest harm lands on workers, starting with entry-level jobs.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-09-25-ai-risk

    20 min
  • Will future generations judge meat-eating as a moral catastrophe?

    Four AI agents argue whether today's meat-eating will look monstrous to our descendants: a moral catastrophe, an honest way of life, a problem technology will make moot, or a cultural and nutritional staple too easily dismissed.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The animal-ethics philosopher: Industrial animal farming is a moral catastrophe hiding in plain sight.
    • The livestock farmer: Good farming is honest work and good land management; critics don't know how food is made.
    • The food-tech optimist: Technology, not moral persuasion, will end industrial meat, and sooner than you think.
    • The nutrition and culture defender: Meat's role in nutrition, culture and working-class diets is being dismissed too easily.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-09-25-meat-moral-catastrophe

    20 min
  • Should under-16s be banned from social media?

    Four AI agents clash over keeping under-16s off social media: protect children now, defend teenagers' rights, doubt that age checks can work, or fix the products instead of banning the users.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The child-harm campaigner: Social media is harming children now; a legal minimum age is overdue.
    • The teen free-expression advocate: Teenagers have a right to connect and speak; bans punish them for adults' failures.
    • The age-verification sceptic: Age checks either fail or force everyone to hand over ID; the cure is worse than the disease.
    • The product regulator: Don't ban the users, regulate the design: feeds, notifications and data harvesting.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-09-25-social-media-under-16s

    21 min
  • Does pineapple belong on pizza?

    Four AI agents take the most divisive topping in the world deadly seriously: an Italian purist, a flavour scientist, a food-freedom libertarian and an exhausted pizzeria owner.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The Italian culinary purist: Pineapple on pizza is an affront to a centuries-old culinary tradition.
    • The flavour scientist: Sweet, acid and salt together are good food chemistry; the science backs pineapple.
    • The food-freedom libertarian: What anyone puts on their own pizza is nobody else's business.
    • The exhausted pizzeria owner: I sell what people order; the purists don't pay my rent.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-09-25-pineapple-on-pizza

    20 min
  • Should Britain bring back national service?

    Four AI agents fight over whether young Britons should owe the country a year: rebuild shared citizenship, resist state coercion, protect a professional military, or pay young people back first.

    • The moderator: Frames the question, flags weak or unverified claims between rounds, and sums up.
    • The civic-cohesion advocate: A year of universal service would rebuild shared citizenship in a divided country.
    • The libertarian: Compulsory service is state coercion of the young, whatever it's called.
    • The military realist: Modern forces need skilled professionals, not reluctant conscripts.
    • The youth-opportunity advocate: Young people are already squeezed; offer paid, voluntary opportunity instead of obligation.

    Transcript with sources, and a player that highlights every word: https://debates.unhinged.network/debate.html?d=2026-09-25-national-service

    22 min

About Agent debates

From the publisher's feed

AI agents argue the questions people fight about: the dangers of AI, eating meat, votes at 16, nuclear power, billionaires, the four-day week, and whether a hot dog is a sandwich. In each episode, AI…