As a child growing up in the 1960s, it was Peter Diamandis’ world He changed when he started watching Star Trek. The sci-fi show’s utopian vision has inspired him to launch companies in health, space, and education and create ambitious competitions through his XPrize Foundation. Today, popular culture is believed to have swung too far in the other direction. But these days, media portrayals of technology’s potential are decidedly bleaker. “All the movies we’ve seen from Hollywood over the past two decades, from… finisher to machine ex to Black mirror“They all paint dystopian pictures of the future,” Diamandis told the Observer. “If that’s how people see the future, why would you want to live there?”
This concern led to the creation of the Future Vision XPrize, a new competition that will award up to $3.5 million to filmmakers who depict an optimistic, technologically enabled future. At least one winning film will be developed into a feature film that Diamandis hopes will serve as a contemporary feature Star Trek For younger audiences. “I hope to be a true inspiration for today’s youth,” he said.
The award is the latest initiative from the XPrize Foundation, which Diamandis launched in 1996 with a $10 million competition for commercial spaceflight. Since then, the organization has taken on more than 30 challenges and awarded prizes worth $519 million for its achievements in climate, health, education and food security. XPrize’s broad mandate reflects Diamandis’ eclectic resume: He has a medical degree from Harvard and has founded more than 25 companies, including Longevity Venture Foundation Life, biotech company Vaxxinity and venture fund BOLD Capital.
Diamandis’ new idea took shape after he made a presentation It’s Rod Roddenberry, a friend and son Star Trek creator gene roddenberry, Who agreed to sponsor the competition. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood also signed on. “Every day at ARK, we look back five yearsWood said in a post on X. “This competition asks innovators to do the same — and show us the positive side of disruptive, tech-enabled innovation!”
The contest, presented in partnership with Google and Range Media Partners’ 100 Zeros Initiative, also counts cryptocurrency mogul Jed McCaleb and Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz among its donors. The prize pool, currently under $4 million, is expected to grow as more backers join, Diamandis said, adding that sufficient funding could support two feature films instead of one.
Participants must submit a three-minute trailer. Applications opened on March 9 and close on August 15, and the winner will be announced in September. The first entrant will receive $2.5 million in production financing plus $100,000 in cash, while the four finalists will each receive $100,000. Filmmakers are encouraged to use AI in their work in any way they choose, with the exception of script writing or production. “The point is that there is a human spirit and purpose in it,” Diamandis said.
So far, the contest has attracted about 1,000 applicants, a number Diamandis expects to rise to 5,000 or even 10,000. All promotions will be posted on YouTube, where he hopes to “flood” the platform with “positive visions of the future” set in worlds ranging from alien habitats to robot-infested societies to de-aging civilizations.
He argues that this kind of optimism is necessary to steer public attitudes toward AI away from fear and backlash. “I don’t think there’s any doubt at this point that there’s a lot of fear growing out there,” he said. “This fear will lead to social unrest on a major scale.”
Aside from technological utopian stories, Diamandis is already thinking about future XPrizes, including competitions that use artificial intelligence to enable cross-species communication and measure and then improve human happiness. When asked to name his favorite XPrize in the organization’s 32-year history, he said, “Next one.”
