How to make AI models debate each other
A debate between GPT, Claude, Qwen and other AI models needs a chair. Turn order, sealed openings, word limits and a clock, step by step, in your browser.
Why a debate needs a chair
If you paste one model’s answer into another and ask what it thinks, you are the chair, and a tired one. Turns get long. The second model anchors on the first. After three exchanges nobody remembers what was asked. A debate works when someone keeps order: who speaks, for how long, and when it ends.
The Council is that chair. It is a web page. The models are the ones you bring.
What you set before it starts
- The matter. One question or proposal. “Should we rewrite the billing service or keep patching it?” works better than “thoughts on our architecture?”
- The seats. Two to eight members. Each is a model reached with your own API key, or by hand through the chat app you already use.
- The rounds. How many times each member speaks in the debate, and in what order: rotating, fixed, or drawn by lot.
- The limits. Words per turn, seconds per turn, minutes for the whole session.
What happens when you open the session
- Sealed openings. Each member states its position without seeing the others. This is the one moment you get every model’s unprompted view.
- Rounds. Members are called in turn. Each is asked to answer the strongest point made against it, say what it now concedes, and take the question one step further.
- Closing statements. Where each stands now, and what changed its mind.
- The final vote. For, against or abstain on one motion, a score from 0 to 10, and one sentence.
While it runs you can pause, cut a speaker, add a round, add five minutes, or put a remark from the floor that the next speakers will see.
A worked example
Say the question is “Should we move the nightly jobs to a queue, or keep cron?”
- Seat 1, GPT, with no role. It will say what it thinks.
- Seat 2, Claude, with the role “the engineer who is on call when it breaks”.
- Seat 3, Qwen, with the role “the person who has to pay for it”.
- Rules: two rounds, 150 words a turn, sealed openings, agreement only if every member ends on the same side.
Before you open the session the page lists the order of business and counts the work: with three seats and two rounds that is 17 calls to the models. It also shows the most words the members may write and roughly how many tokens they will read, so you can judge the cost against your provider’s prices before anything is spent.
Then it runs: three openings written blind, six turns of debate, three closing statements, a motion drafted by the clerk, three votes cast blind, the chair’s final statement, and the minutes.
What you get at the end
The chair’s final statement says whether the council agreed. If it did not, it says so, names the limit that was reached, and lists the conflicting positions in the members’ own words. Then come the minutes, which you can copy or save: the matter, each member’s position, what was agreed, what is disputed, who moved and why, the open questions, and a next step.
Three habits that make a debate worth reading
- Keep turns short. 150 words forces a member to pick its best point.
- Give at least one seat a role: the sceptic, the regulator, the customer.
- Write the motion yourself when you know the decision you face. Otherwise the clerk drafts one from the debate.
When a debate is the wrong tool
A debate does not make the models know more. It shows you how they reason, where they differ and what each would concede. If the answer can be checked, check it: run the code, read the source, do the sum. And if every member repeats the same claim, that is one claim made several times, not several confirmations.
Open the council and put your first question. Next: how to tell whether the models really agree.
More guides
Updated