XPRIZE billionaire founder Peter Diamandis is tired of the apocalyptic scenarios portrayed by films like The Terminator or Ex Machina: Artificial Instinct. The Harvard-educated engineer and doctor turned entrepreneur is trying to change that narrative with a new $3.5 million Future Vision XPRIZE award.
Backed by Google and talent management firm Range Media Partners’ 100 Zeros initiative, the fund will promote “optimistic science fiction,” offering a fresh take on a subgenre often marked by dystopias in science fiction films.
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Aspiring filmmakers can submit three-minute trailers or short films that portray “positive visions of the future” for a chance to become one of five finalists to receive $100,000 in cash.
The winner will receive both the cash prize and $2.5 million to turn their idea into a feature film. This, added to the US$500,000 distributed among the finalists and another US$500,000 in additional prizes not yet revealed, makes up the total of US$3.5 million.
The finalists will present their films at Diamandis’ Moonshot Gathering, a new conference he will launch in September aimed at younger entrepreneurs. Diamandis, who founded the XPRIZE Foundation to lead the design and operation of large-scale incentive competitions, said he expects the final prize to increase as new supporters join the project.
The new XPRIZE comes at a time when anxiety about the future of AI is rising. Layoffs linked to AI tools grew last month after Block laid off 4,000 employees, with CEO Jack Dorsey citing the capabilities of the “intelligence tools.”
Prominent business leaders such as Jamie Dimon and Microsoft’s AI chief Mustafa Suleyman have also warned about AI’s potential to replace office workers and leave people without jobs.
Meanwhile, one of the biggest names in the AI sector, Anthropic, said in a recent report that not only early-career employees but also older, more skilled workers could be at risk of replacement.
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In this context, Diamandis said the new XPRIZE is needed more than ever. As technology and people’s fears about it grow, there needs to be a more positive example of what the future could look like, he argued.
“I dare you to name one positive movie about technology — and if that’s the only image you have of the future, why would you want to live in it?” Diamandis told Fortune.
Diamandis pointed to the Star Trek series as the type of science fiction he wants to encourage — a work that portrays collaboration between humans and technology, rather than conflict.
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When he was creating the award, he contacted Rod Roddenberry, founder of the Roddenberry Foundation, whose father, Gene Roddenberry, created the series, and got his support for the idea. Cathie Wood, CEO of asset manager ARK Invest, also signed on as a sponsor.
For more than 30 years, Diamandis and the XPRIZE Foundation have driven research and development in areas ranging from space travel to increasing healthy human longevity, resulting in 30 awards and more than $600 million in rewards.
This latest XPRIZE was a natural extension of the foundation’s work, Diamandis said, and yet, while the prize promotes technology, the films entered must be human, not AI-driven.
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“We’re not looking for an AI to write a script and an AI to make a movie without a human in the process,” he said. “This needs to be led by someone who has a passionate vision of what a future worth living in can look like.”
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