How to use the yes or no generator
- Think of a question that can be answered with yes or no, such as “Should I go to the gym tonight?” or “Do we order pizza?”.
- Decide in advance what you will do on each answer – and, if several people are involved, agree that everyone accepts the result.
- Choose “Yes or No” for a pure 50/50 answer, or “Yes, No or Maybe” if you want a third way out.
- Click Ask once and act on the answer. Asking again until you get the answer you hoped for turns it into a vote you have already decided.
How likely is a streak of the same answer?
Every answer is independent of the ones before, so a run of yeses says nothing about the next click. Runs still feel surprising: with only yes and no, the chance of getting yes several times in a row halves with every click, while the chance of the same answer – yes or no – several times in a row is twice as high, because the first answer can be either.
| Run length | Yes every time (yes/no) | Same answer every time (yes/no) | Yes every time (yes/no/maybe) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 in a row | 1 in 4 (25%) | 1 in 2 (50%) | 1 in 9 (11.1%) |
| 3 in a row | 1 in 8 (12.5%) | 1 in 4 (25%) | 1 in 27 (3.7%) |
| 4 in a row | 1 in 16 (6.25%) | 1 in 8 (12.5%) | 1 in 81 (1.23%) |
| 5 in a row | 1 in 32 (3.13%) | 1 in 16 (6.25%) | 1 in 243 (0.41%) |
| 10 in a row | 1 in 1,024 (0.098%) | 1 in 512 (0.195%) | 1 in 59,049 (0.0017%) |
Yes/no: each answer has probability 1/2, so a run of n yeses is (1/2)ⁿ and a run of any one answer is (1/2)ⁿ⁻¹. With maybe: (1/3)ⁿ.
This is also why “ask until it says yes” works so well: within three clicks you get at least one yes 7 times out of 8 (87.5%). If you keep asking, the generator is no longer deciding for you.
Use the answer as a gut check
A random answer can help even when you do not follow it. In two experiments published in PLOS ONE in 2019, Mariela Jaffé, Leonie Reutner and Rainer Greifeneder found that letting a coin flip “choose” an option made people’s feelings about that option stronger, and gave them a clearer sense of what they actually wanted. If you feel relief when the answer is no, or disappointment when it is yes, that reaction is useful information.
Economist Steven Levitt ran a larger test of the same idea. On a website, people facing a decision they could not make tossed a virtual coin – about 22,500 usable tosses. Those who got heads (make the change, for example quit a job) were about 21–25 percentage points more likely to make the change than those who got tails, and reported being happier six months later (NBER working paper 22487, published in the Review of Economic Studies in 2021). The participants chose to take part and were already undecided, so the result does not mean a coin should run anyone’s life – only that people who are truly stuck often benefit from being nudged into acting.
Good ways to use it – and when not to
- Small choices that keep stalling: which film to watch, whether to cook or order, who goes first in a game.
- Breaking a tie in a group: agree that the answer is final before anyone clicks.
- Classroom and party games: a “magic” yes/no oracle for silly questions, or a quick way to decide whether a forfeit is done.
- Practising probability: click 20 times and count the yeses. Anything from 6 to 14 yeses happens about 96% of the time; the share gets closer to 50% the more you click.
- Not for decisions about health, money, safety or other people’s lives. For those, look at the facts or ask someone qualified.
Yes/no generator, coin flip or dice?
A yes/no answer has the same odds as a coin flip; the only difference is the wording, and the optional Maybe. Use the coin flip if you want heads or tails or many flips at once, the dice roller for more than three outcomes (a d6 gives six options at 1 in 6 each), and the random name picker when the choice is between people or named options rather than yes and no.