Creative Contest
The winning projects are announced!
The Future of Life Institute is pleased to announce the results of the 'Keep the Future Human Creative Contest' on the hopes and challenges of a human future in the age of advanced AI.
From over 300 submissions, we have selected 5 Grand Prize winners, 10 Runners-up and 9 Special Prize winners, to whom a prize pool of over $100,000 will be distributed, as well as a handful of Notable Mentions. The artworks are now published and available on this webpage.
Entry to the contest was free, and we accepted submissions from people of any age, anywhere in the world, so long as their submission was in English. Some submissions came from teams of people, while others came from a single contributer. All of the submissions were reviewed by our contest team, and ultimately the winners were selected by Anthony Aguirre, author of Keep the Future Human.
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Grand Prize
Will AI Destroy Humanity?
Our team consists of:
Vin Sixsmith, 19yo, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Roles: Writer, Narrator, Video Editor, Creative Director.
Renzo Stadhouder, 18yo, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Roles: 3D Animator, Designer, Video Editor.
Vin handled scripting, thumbnail design, creative direction, and recording the narration, while Renzo brought the vision to life through Unreal Engine animation and technical execution. We chose to make this submission because we believe Aguirre's essay contains crucial insights that more people need to be aware of and understand about AI safety. This project allowed us to combine what we enjoy (storytelling and 3D animation) while contributing to a cause we find important.
The Choice Before Us
The Button
The Alignment Game: Can You Keep the Future Human?
The AI After Tomorrow
This project was created by Beatrice Malfa and Paolo Tognozzi, both working in the field of communication and with a shared creative background. Paolo developed the gameplay structure and core mechanics, shaping a system that feels urgent, strategic and cooperative. Beatrice focused on the thematic dimension of the game, crafting the flavor text and writing the rulebook to ensure the game’s message and narrative were clear, cohesive and engaging. Together, we designed the artwork, visual identity and all additional promotional materials, building the entire print-and-play experience from the ground up. We decided to participate in this contest because the theme of Keep the Future Human deeply resonates with us. As board game enthusiasts, we saw an opportunity to use a “pop” and widely accessible medium to explore an important and complex topic and to challenge ourselves with a creative format we had never fully developed before. This project allowed us to combine our professional skills with our passion for board games, while contributing to a broader conversation on the future of AI and humanity.
Runners-up
The Regulatory Adventures Of Chippy The GPU
The Last Gate
Team members include:
- Oluwaseyi Oso - Scriptwriter, Narrator, Visual Engineer, Videographer, Researcher
- Oluwaseun Oso – Web Developer (developed the prisoner's dilemma simulation and the Bot Tube interface), Video Editor, Co-scriptwriter
Both of us conceptualized the project together, deciding the techniques, the structure, and how the game would function as a cohesive part of the experience.
Why we made this submission:
We made this submission because AI safety is one of the most important questions humanity faces right now, and we wanted to engage with it in a way that felt urgent and accessible. Anthony Aguirre's essay gave us a framework that was both rigorous and actionable, something we could translate into a format that anyone could understand. The prisoner's dilemma isn't abstract. It's the exact logic driving the AGI race, and we wanted people to experience that tension firsthand through the game. We're fascinated by AI safety; it's an area we've been passionate about for a while, and this contest felt like the right moment to contribute something meaningful. This documentary and game are tools, for students encountering these ideas for the first time, for policymakers thinking about regulation, for anyone wondering if we can build transformative AI without losing control of our future. We think the answer is yes, but only if we start having these conversations now.
Keep The Future Human | Anthony Aguirre (Vertical Short Explainer Video)
Keep it Human: Humanity's Future in an AI-World
Daniela Alvarez Robledo - Writing, set design, acting, and postproduction assistance.
María Fernanda Colorado Rodríguez - Set design, filming, acting, postproduction: graphic design and editing.
Octavio Armando Vera Tijerina - Postproduction: editing and sound design.
We decided to create this video essay because we deeply relate to the essay’s content. As professionals working in art and science, we have seen firsthand how our fields have changed with the implementation of AI tools, even replacing humans. We want to contribute with our knowledge and abilities to create a piece of communication that motivates action in the real world.
Instrumental Goals
Humanity's Last Invention
How AI will not replace us (If We Make This Choice)
ChatFish 2031
Æsthetic Existential Exploration - How can we keep the future human in the age of AI?
A Message to Everyone on Earth
Special Prize
Tears in the Robot Factory
Reverse Turing Test
Popping the AI barrier
Playing with Fire
Debate About a Human Future - Vita egy emberi jövőről
The team consists of three members: Milán Keleti, Ádám Farkas, and me, Szilárd Gerely. Milán and I have known each other for ages since we went to the same high school. He was the one who introduced me to Ádám. We all previously worked together on an Instagram page called Jéghideg. I’m currently studying economics in Dublin, Milán is studying liberal arts in Budapest, and Ádám is in his final year of secondary school. Most of the creative work was done by Milán and me, while Ádám helped with the technical side, providing equipment and tools. This is roughly how the process went: we sat down and read the essay, then debated and debated and debated. We did some additional reading and research, which sparked even more discussions. Based on all these conversations, I wrote the script, and what you see is the refined, distilled result of those many debates. After that, Ádám sourced cameras and microphones for the recording, and Milán edited the footage.
Closing the Gates to Superhuman AI
AIAware.us: A wake-up quiz on the reality of the AI race.
A youth dialogue on keeping the future human
A Campaign Kit to Push for Real AI Safety Policy
Notable Mentions
Our submission features 12 professional artists, 1 high school student, 1 amazing sound engineer and a lot of heart.
Cinthia Nemoto, founder of The Exploration Hub and Chair of the board for TheaTERRA (Theatre for the Planet) informed Sara Holt, Artistic Director of TheaTERRA, about the contest. Sara then convinced Erin Mathews to co-create and write a song that deeply reflects the essays' core themes. Both Sara and Erin work as instructors at OTM.
Thanks to the schools generosity we were able to access the recording studio for free. There, we created this song with recent OTM Grads and 3 additional talented humans. One of the 3 additional humans was an autistic high school student who is currently doing his work experience at OTM. This collaborative and inclusive experience was a gift for everyone involved and our entry, 'Paper Clip Apocalypse (WarHorse Machine)' is a product of shared the experience, community and the spirit of ensemble.
We are truly blessed to have worked with these talented young artists who donated their time, energy and passion for the preservation of Human Centred Arts and Culture. We also provided them with a meal and homemade treats to keep the humans fueled for the 5 hour professional studio recording session. All of the players in this project have creative talents that are rapidly being replaced by AI. Our voices and our "matter" matters. So we made this song.
Music producer Fabian Horstfeld, singer and trombone player Sarah Tegeler, video producer Nik von Wendt, and writer/AI safety influencer Karl von Wendt joined forces to try and capture the essence of Anthony Aguirre's essay in four minutes of music. We hope that this short piece, in combination with the music video and accompanying website, will create attention, interest and engagement for what we believe is the most important issue of our time.
Our team consists of two people: Dario Frettoli and Marica Martella. We developed the entire video together, from concept to final execution. Marica performed on camera and co-crafted the narrative structure while Dario handled cinematography, editing and the overall visual and technical direction. Throughout the process we worked collaboratively on writing, research and the creative decisions that shaped the final piece. We chose to make this submission because it aligned perfectly with a project we had been wanting to start for a long time: a series of video essays exploring creativity, technology and the role of artists in contemporary society. The themes of Keep the Future Human, particularly AI’s impact on human agency and the future of creative work, resonated strongly with our personal and professional experiences. Participating in the contest offered both a meaningful context and a motivating framework to finally begin this series and contribute to a broader public conversation around AGI and the future of creative labor.
AI is poised to remake the world.
The past few years have seen a revolution in AI. We now have systems that can do many of the things humans can. They are developed and deployed by some of the world's largest corporations.
They’ve learned to do many things that, until recently, we thought only humans could do: create life-like images and videos, write computer code, control robots, discover new treatments for disease, win maths and science contest, and more. It's amazing.
But though the promise of this technology is enormous, so are it’s potential risks. These same capabilities can be used to develop bio-weapons, conduct cyberattacks, interfere in elections, generate deepfakes for fraud or non-consensual pornography…
And yet these risks mean nothing relative to what might be coming next.
We are on the brink of developing human-level AI, or “artificial general intelligence” (AGI). As we approach this point, how we choose to develop AI will largely decide our fate as a species.
And yet, Big Tech is racing to develop and release ever more powerful AIs without meaningful guardrails or oversight. Despite admitting the risks, they aggressively lobby against regulation. Policymakers are out-of-the-loop, and wildly under-equipped to handle what is coming.
Our future as a civilization, and a species, is on the line.
It's time to close the gates on AGI and superintelligence... before we lose control of our destiny.
Keep The Future Human is an attempt to lay out these arguments in clear and plain language. It is a proposal for what we can and must do to ensure our very survival in a world with human-level AI. And it is an invitation to join us in tackling the most important issue facing humanity today.
We need to create visions of a positive future for humanity in a world with AI, and ideas for how to get there. We each need to share our perspective on what a human future with AI should look like, while its trajectory is still undecided.
We need to inform the people around us about the dangers of human-level AI, and the fact that AI companies actually trying to build it.
‘Keep The Future Human’ is a message that our world desperately needs to hear. It is an antidote to the out-of-control AI race that companies and countries are locked in today.
We hope you will join us in making the call to keep the future human.
Your Submission
To enter the competition, you must submit a creative piece of digital media that explores or illustrates the key messages within Keep The Future Human. Please review the Judging Criteria before deciding on your submission piece.
Submission Materials
Your submission must include:
- Your creative piece in a digital format.
- This must be supplied as a URL. This could be a website, or a Google Doc, or a cloud storage folder containing your materials.
- A completed submission form, including:
- Title of your submission;
- Short blurb for your submission;
- A ‘featured image’ for your submission (for examples of this, see the Superintelligence Imagined contest webpage) which presents your creative piece in a compelling way;
- Information about you / your team;
- An explanation of how your submission delivers on the intentions of this contest, and engages with the core ideas of Keep The Future Human;
- AI usage statement: Rate on a 0-10 scale the extent that AI was used in the production of your submission (where 0 = "not even spellcheck", and 10 = "submission is entirely AI-generated content"), and describe your use of AI in one sentence. AI use is allowed, but you should be thoughtful about how and when you use it.
- (Optional) A distribution plan for your submission. We encourage all entrants to develop a plan, and if you submit it as part of your entry you’ll be considered for a $500 mini-grant for the distribution of your submission. Your plan might include:
- Audience: Who is the target audience for your creative piece? Please be as specific as possible—a broad audience is much harder to target and reach than a specific audience.
- Publishing channel: On which channel(s) will your creative piece be published? Is it an existing channel or a new channel? If you don’t have a channel with an existing following, could you identify other channels that might publish your work?
- How do you intend to distribute your creative piece to your intended audience? How will they find out about your creative piece?
- How would you spend a $500 mini-grant for distribution if you were to receive it?
Inspiration
Here are some ideas for the sort of submissions that we would be excited to receive:
- A 10-15 minute video essay summarizing all of the essay’s main arguments.
- A set of short live-action or animated videos that each explain or visualize a key insight from the essay, or summarise one of the essay’s chapters.
- A detailed proposal for a "Keep the Future Human" plank of a political party platform – or perhaps the platform for a new political party!
- A 3,000-word fictional story of a person living in the year 2050, reflecting on how a flourishing future for humankind was achieved.
- An infographic or interactive webpage conveying all the essay’s appendixes.
- A digital interactive demo that puts users face-to-face with some impressive present-day capabilities of AI, and how they might be used for good and for harm.
- An animated explainer for Keep the Future Human.
- A set of figures and diagrams that Keep the Future Human should have had but didn't.
- An illustrated or comic book version of Keep the Future Human.
- A demo for a digital gathering space or forum, and a plan for how to engage and mobilise online communities in this space for positive action on AI safety.
- A tycoon-style video game to simulate human society and how it handles the development of superintelligence.
- An anthology or collection of submissions created during a workshop that you hosted.
Your submission does NOT need to be one of these items—you are free to make any type of creative piece that you like so long as it meets the judging criteria. In fact, we are eager to receive a wide range of submissions in a variety of formats.
Publishing Your Submission
We hope that your contest submission will be widely seen and enjoyed by many people. However, you must NOT publish your submission before the contest has concluded.
You should prepare to publish your submission (according to your ‘distribution plan’ submitted as part of your entry) in the 48-hour window leading up to the contest results announcement date.
Your submission will be disqualified if it is published online before this window.
If your submission does not win a prize, you are free to publish it however and whenever you like.
Submission Guidelines & Criteria
- Original works: Submissions should consist of original works authored by the submission author / team.
- Use of AI is allowed but must be transparently disclosed in your "AI usage statement."
- Unpublished works: Submissions should NOT be works that are already published. You will be required to publish your work during the publication window indicated in the section “Publishing your submission”.
- Medium: No limitations, but you should be mindful of the ‘Accessibility & Portability’ criteria.
- Length: There are no particular requirements for the length / duration of your submission, except that it should take no more than 20 minutes to enjoy (for written pieces, this equals around 3500 words).
- Multiple submissions: Applicants are welcome to make multiple submissions, but they can only win a prize for one of their submissions.
Teams
Teams are allowed to submit collaborative projects. Cash prizes will be divided according to the arrangement decided by the team members.
Eligibility
Eligibility requirements are very relaxed, allowing basically anybody to submit:
- Submissions must be provided in English (or at least an English version).
- Entrants can be from anywhere in the world (though to receive prize money they must be located somewhere we can send them money).
- Entrants can be of any age, but cash prizes can only be transferred to those over the age of 18. Anybody younger than 18 who wins a cash prize will need to assign a 'sponsor' to receive the prize money on their behalf.
Judging Criteria
Submissions will be evaluated by Anthony (author of Keep The Future Human) and colleagues at the Future of Life Institute according to the following criteria:
- Engaging with Keep The Future Human, and delivering on contest objectives — Your submission must demonstrate an understanding of the key ideas within the essay ‘Keep The Future Human’, and seek to explore or engage with them (we recommend that all applicants set aside 2-3 hours to read the full essay before deciding on your creative piece). Your submission must also contribute to our goals for the contest: To help the essay’s key ideas reach a wider range of people; to inspire others to think about and engage with the ideas more deeply; to spark public discussion about the ideas; to motivate action in the real world to further the ideas.
- Creative Execution — Quality of craft and creative execution in your piece.
- Accessibility & Portability — How easily a piece of creative content can be accessed and enjoyed by a wide range of people. This also considers the strength of your ‘distribution plan’.
NOTE: Your submission will be evaluated as a complete package, including the creative piece, title, description, thumbnail, and distribution plan. You should dedicate some time to ensuring that all elements of your of your submission are strong.
Prizes
$100,000+ in Cash Prizes
Cash prizes for winners and runners-up:
- 5x Grand Prizes ($10,000 each)
- 10x Runner-up Prizes ($5,000 each)
- (up to) 5x Special Prizes ($2,500 each)
TOTAL Prize Pool: $100,000+
Special Prizes
At the discretion of the judges, we may offer additional ‘Special prizes’ for submissions that are best-in-category. Here are some example categories that could be awarded a special prize (the actual categories will be decided by judges when evaluating the submissions):
- Best KTFH essay explainer (summarizes or explains the full contents of KTFH)
- Best positive and compelling vision of the future (presents a positive vision of a human future with AI, and explains how we got there)
- Best youth submission (all team members age <21)
- Best international submission (supplied in English and at least one other language)
- Most innovative format (unique or unconventional creative medium or format)
Distribution Mini-Grant – $500+
Prize-winning submissions which have a particularly strong ‘distribution plan’ might be offered a mini-grant of $500 or more to help promote those pieces. Mini-grants are not guaranteed and will be awarded at the discretion of the judging panel. For more detail, see the section "Submission materials".
Keep The Future Human Merchandise
All prize-winners will receive a limited-edition paperback copy of Keep The Future Human, as well as Keep The Future Human merch (hoodies, t-shirts, or baseball caps).
Referral Bonus – $30 Amazon Vouchers
We are excited to see as many people as possible participating in this contest, so we want to reward you for inviting other people to join the contest and make a submission.
For each person that you refer to the contest, you will be awarded a $30 Amazon gift voucher as a thank-you. You will only receive a referral bonus for people who complete (or participate in a team that completes) a sincere submission.
It doesn’t matter whether or not they have any pre-existing familiarity with the topic of AI — we give applicants all the information they need to make a submission.
You don’t need to give them a referral code — they will be invited to tell us who referred them to the contest when submitting their project.
Contest Timeline
| Event | Date & time |
|---|---|
| Contest launch | 3rd September 2025 |
| Opens for submissions | 1st November 2025 |
| Submission deadline | 30th November 2025, 23:59 UTC (see in your timezone) |
| Applicants contacted about their results | Early December 2025 |
| Winning applicants publish their submissions | Mid December 2025 (up to 48hrs before the results are publicly announced) |
| Results are publicly announced | Mid December 2025 |
For any questions about the contest, please contact taylor@futureoflife.org