The Open Philanthropy AI Worldviews Contest was a 2023 competition organized to surface novel considerations that could influence Open Philanthropy’s views on AI timelines and AI risk. A total of $225,000 in prize money was awarded across six winning entries. The contest served as the formal successor to a 2022 preannouncement and as a spiritual successor to the now-defunct Future Fund AI competition.
Submissions were accepted from September 23, 2022 through May 31, 2023. Eligible entries had to be original, written in English, and first published during that window. There was no official word limit, though essays over 5,000 words were considered harder to engage with. Coauthored submissions were allowed, and participants could submit multiple entries but only win once.
Entries had to address one of the following questions:
Each essay was required to focus on a single question. Judging emphasized how well the submission uncovered or clarified considerations that changed a judge’s beliefs about either question.
First Prizes ($50k)
Second Prizes ($37.5k)
Third Prizes ($25k)
The judges did not endorse all conclusions in the winning entries. Many essays advanced multiple claims, of which some were judged more persuasive than others. In certain cases, entries were valued for their clarity in presenting viewpoints the judges did not personally agree with.
The diversity of submissions meant that another panel might have selected different winners. Open Philanthropy explicitly discouraged readers from overanchoring on the prizewinners’ topics as signals of institutional priorities or grantmaking direction.