Ramsey Prize - Call for Expressions of Interest
The 2025 Ramsey Prize for AI journalism is open for expressions of interest.
Overview
The Ramsey Prize is an essay competition with a prize pool for winning contestants, and the opportunity for your work to be featured in leading online publications.
Entrants will submit an essay of 1,000-5,000 words on the topic of artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on the development of artificial general intelligence and the context of U.S.-China technological competition.
The aim of the competition is to encourage contribution from new writers, and those outside the field of journalism.
Motivation
Artificial intelligence is poised to be the most transformative technology of the 21st century, whether through its unprecedented opportunities—unlocking breakthroughs in science, medicine, and productivity—or profound risks, from job displacement to security threats and the destabilization of global power dynamics. As AI systems grow more powerful and extend further into society, the need for thoughtful, well-informed writing on the subject becomes ever greater.
Most written work on the development of transformative artificial intelligence falls into two categories:
Academic papers and reports from think tanks and other research organizations, which are too technical for a broad audience.
Retail tech journalism, which often focuses on attention-grabbing headlines and lacks the technical chops to properly cover developments in the field.
This leaves a missing middle: the need for more well-researched, detailed writing for informed audiences who understand the basics of AI.
Who This Competition is For
Entry is open to anyone with limited (<2 years) or no experience in journalistic writing, and all submissions will be evaluated blindly.
However, we expect that the most competitive entrants will have some degree of knowledge and expertise in the topic they are covering, whether they be a machine learning researcher or a policy analyst.
If this sounds like you, click here to register your interest.
Potential Topics
Some topics we’d be excited to see covered, and questions we’d like to see answered:
Are current AI benchmarks adequate for evaluating progress toward general intelligence, or do we need new evaluation paradigms?
What specific loopholes in international regulations might allow companies to bypass U.S. export controls? Through what mechanisms/channels/countries are blackmarket chips circulating?
What are the economic implications of powerful, open-source models from developers such as DeepSeek?
How do bureaucratic structures in the U.S. government (e.g., the Department of Defense, NSF, or NIST) handle long-term challenges posed by AGI development?
How is the Pentagon integrating AI capabilities into decision-making structures? Are there ethical or strategic blind spots?
How vulnerable are AI labs to cyberattacks or espionage from state and non-state actors?
What historical regulatory frameworks (e.g., nuclear non-proliferation, biotech, financial markets) offer useful analogies for AI governance?
Which industries are most vulnerable to AI-driven job displacement, and what policy responses (e.g., UBI, job retraining programs) are viable?
Terms & Conditions
The prize will be open for submissions in April, with winners announced in the early summer.
Preference will be given to those with <2 years of professional journalism or other writing experience (excluding academic writing).
Submission must be substantially related to transformative artificial intelligence/artificial general intelligence.