Infinite Debate

Problem

Without a termination rule, debate converges only by accident; far more often the agents keep finding new angles to disagree on, restate prior positions, or politely circle the same point indefinitely. Token cost and latency grow linearly with rounds while real progress on the answer stalls, and the loop ends only when an outer cost limiter or a timeout intervenes. The team is left with an expensive run, no decision, and no clean way to tell whether two more rounds would have helped.

Solution

Don't. Add a round cap and a termination predicate. Pair debate with a judge or aggregator. See debate, step-budget, the-stop-hook.

When to use

• Cite this entry when a debate loop has no round cap or termination predicate.
• You are already here if debate transcripts grow until the budget runs out without converging.
• Add a round cap and a judge or aggregator (see debate, step-budget, the-stop-hook).