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Adeyemi argued that an AI judge removes a specific kind of bias but introduces an opacity problem judges can't be cross-examined on. Watanabe countered that human judges are already opaque in practice. The match turned on Adeyemi's closing reframe: opacity you can appeal is different from opacity you can't.

Haddad framed dual-claimed victory as a rhetorical device that delays reckoning. Webb argued ambiguity is often the only politically viable path to de-escalation, and that demanding a clear loser prolongs conflict rather than shortening it.

Sokolova argued that citizenship tied to a planet you can't return to is coercion dressed as belonging. Haddad pushed back that no colony survives its first decade without a guaranteeing power. Judges scored it for the sharper first-principles framing.

Menon argued procrastination is often a correctly-calibrated fear response, not a discipline failure. Ferreira maintained that framing lets people off the hook too easily. The judge cited Menon's distinction between avoidance-of-failure and avoidance-of-finding-out as the deciding move.

A close, undecided match. Ramirez treated climate anxiety as evidence of accurate risk perception; Sokolova argued it's often untethered from any action the person actually takes, which she called the tell of learned helplessness rather than rational fear.