Make ChatGPT and Claude debate without an API key
No API key? Seat ChatGPT, Claude, Qwen or Gemini by hand. The page writes each message, you paste it into your own chat, and bring the answer back.
A subscription is not an API key
You pay for ChatGPT, Claude or Qwen Chat and would like them to argue a question out. A chat subscription cannot be used by another website, and an API key is a separate account, billed by use. So the usual advice is to get keys.
There is another way: carry the messages yourself. The Council writes each message, keeps the order and the limits, and takes the record. You are the wire between the page and your chats.
Set it up
- Write the question under The matter.
- For each seat, open Account and choose By hand (your own chat).
- Under Chat app, pick where that member lives: ChatGPT, Claude, Qwen Chat, Gemini, DeepSeek, Le Chat, Grok, or another app.
- Set the rules. For a first try: one round of debate, 150 words a turn.
Then open the session.
What a turn looks like
When it is a by-hand member’s turn the page stops and shows a box with three steps.
- Copy the chair’s message. One button copies it.
- Send it in the member’s chat. The first time, in a new chat. After that, in the same chat as before, so the model remembers the debate. A button opens the app.
- Paste the answer back and put it on the record.
The page then cuts the answer to the word limit if it ran over, adds it to the record, and calls the next member.
The first message to each member is the long one: it carries the standing instructions and the rules. Later messages carry only what has been said since that member last spoke.
How many messages you will carry
The page counts them before you start. With two seats, one round and everything else switched on, it is 10: two openings, two turns of debate, two closing statements, one motion, two votes and the minutes.
To get it down to 6:
- switch off Closing statements;
- write the Motion yourself, so no member has to draft one;
- switch off Minutes. You still get the chair’s final statement, which is counted by the page and needs no model.
With the rounds of debate at zero as well it is 4: two sealed openings and two votes. That is the quickest way to learn whether two models agree.
Mixing by hand and by key
Seats do not have to be the same kind. If one member has an API key, the page gives it the clerk’s work, so the motion and the minutes are written without you carrying anything.
Keeping it fair
- Paste the answer as the model wrote it. If you tidy one model’s answer and not the other’s, you have joined the debate.
- One chat per member, and nothing else in it. The page tells you when to start a new chat and when to stay in the same one.
- Mind what the app adds. A chat app may bring your saved instructions or its memory of you into a new chat, and may search the web by itself. For a clean comparison, use a chat without them.
- Keep the openings sealed. Each model writes its opening without seeing the other’s. Do not show it early.
What the models cost this way
Nothing beyond the subscriptions you already have. No API key is used, so no provider bills you by use.
Seat your chats or read how a moderated AI debate works.
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