Renowned Judges from Harvard, MIT, Leading Universities. Prizes. Grades 6-16
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1,000 entries/10,000 students
Influence the Global AI Conversation
Register Today
1,000 entries/10,000 students
Influence the Global AI Conversation
Ages 8-9: Children should be allowed to have robot pets
(500-word essay)
Ages 10-11: Students should be able to use generative AI in school (1,000-word essay)
Ages 12-13: Students should be able to use
generative AI in school (1,500 words)
Ages 14-15: AI developments will reduce global poverty (2,000 word essay)
Ages 16-18: AI will enhance human flourishing (2,000 words)
Ages 19-22: AI will enhance human flourishing or (students pick) Frontier AI models should be open source (2,500-word essay)
Write a 1,500-word essay*,** and submit it by March 1, 2025. *See details under topics
The top 64 advancing teams*** in each age division will be notified by March 15 and will have until March 26, 2025, to write a rebuttal to another advancing team’s arguments.
Top 32 advancing teams will be notified by March 28, 2025.
April 5-10: 16 online debates among the top 32 per division. Format
These debates will be scheduled at the mutual convenience of the debaters and the judges. This applies to all of the debates.
April 15-20: 8 online debates among the top 16 in each division debate Format
April 22-24: 4 online debates among the top 8 in each division debate Format
April 28-30: 2 online debates among the top 4 in each division
April 29-30: Final round debate
*Length varies by age division. See below.
**Students will write an essay on one side of the resolution. They may pick the side they write on, but they must be prepared to debate both sides of the resolution based on random assignment if they advance to the elimination rounds.
*** We will advance up to 64 entries in each division, but we will not advance more than half of the entries in. any division. All entries in the top 20% will receive awards.
Students also have the option of submitting a video as part of a public speaking contest on one of the above topics. They should choose a subject-area within their age group to submit the videos on.
Videos due March 1st
Finalists announced March 20th. The top 25% of videos will advance to the elimination rounds.
Final Videos due April 5th (students may submit a new video or advance the previous video)
Winner announced April 25th
modusponensinstitute.com
debateus.org
tkethics.org
We are dedicated to making AI literacy a shared journey—one that unfolds through debate, discussion, and collaborative discovery, equipping our community with the tools to foster the development an informed and inclusive digital future.
Tina Austin
Lecturer, Innovative Lecturer in generative AI | Regenerative Medicine and ethics, UCLA
Amy Bauschard
Professor, Early childhood Education, Mercyhurst University
James Bedford
Education Specialist in AI, SFHEA
Amanda Bickerstaff
Founder, AI for Education
Justin Bruno
AI Strategist @ Michigan Virtual
Dr. Jennifer Camille Dempsey
Director, PennWest Center for AI and Emerging Technologies
Joe Carver
Associate Head of School, The Meadows School
David Coale
Partner at Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann, LLP
Darren Coxon
Founder of Node.edu
Dr. Alan Coverstone
Founder, Covariant Education
Jerry Crisci
Co-founder of the Center for Innovation at the Scarsdale Public Schools
Vera Cubero
Emerging Technologies Consultant
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
Dr. Laura Dumin
AI Institute, American Association of Colleges and Universities
Matthew Esterman
Founder / Director - The Next Word
Benjamin Durham
Ploto, Ethical Data Collection Solutions
Sofia Fenichells
Founder, StudyHall.ai
Eric Fraser
CTO, Dr. Lisa AI
Dr. Thomas Goodnight
Professor, USC; identified as one of the top 5 scholars in argumentation in the twentieth century
Alex Gray
AI Network Lead, British Schools in the Middle East
Dr. Jason Gulya
Chair, AI Council, Berkeley College
Aaron Hardy
Debate Coach, UC Berkeley
Rich Heimann
Director of Artificial Intelligence
State of South Carolina
Dr. David Hingstman
Directore of Debate, Iowa (retired)
J.D. Harvard Law School
John Hines
Co-Founder, DebaterHub.com (AI)|
Rosalie (Roz) Hirch
Phd candidate in Linguistics & Technology
Maim Hoque
Senior Business Consultant, IBM
Dr. James Hutson
PHds in Art and Artificial Intelligence
Lindenwood University
Alex Iftimie
Deputy General Counsel, OpenAI
Dr. Michelle Kassorla
Professor of English & Technology, Georgia State
Perimeter
Dr. Michael Kearney
Associate Manager, Data Science - Development & AI, Meijer
Zach Kinzler
Boodlebox.ai
Wes Kriesel
AI Manager, Orange County Department of Education
Mary Lang
Center for Leadership, Equity, and Research (CLEAR), Stanford University
Melissa Loble
Chief Academic Officer, Instructure (Canvas)
Dr. LeAnne Lindsey
Director of EdTech and Innovation, AZ Institute for Education and the Economy
Brian Manuel
Former Director of Policy Debate, Stanford University
Paul Matthews
CEO, MyTeacherAide
Lori Mazor
Founder, Synthetivity.ai
Devika Mehta
Deputy Editor, Jagran New Media
Susan Morrisey
Roach Leadership Center, AI Consultant, Boston College
Dr. Kimberly Pace-Becker
Iowa State & Moxie Academic Labs
Dr. Sabba Quidwai
Founder, Designing Schools
Dr. Anand Rao
Chair, Department of Communication & Digital Studies
University of Mary Washington
Tom Rogerson
Headmaster, Cottesmore School (UK)
Rebecca Rutschmann
Coaching & AI Consultant
Silvio Sangineto
AI Design Leader, Microsoft
Arlo Sporn
Philosopher, Corporate Lawyers
Theo Stapleton
PhD University of Cambridge
Nisha Talagala
Founder & CEO, AI Club
Dr. Tatjana Titareva
Titareva AI Education Consultancy
Sophie Theodoro
Designing Schools
Ghazali bin Abdul Wahab
Nanyang Technological University Singapore
Edward Williams
Debate Coach, Harvard Debate Council
Dr. Jessica Yeats
Principal Data Scientist, Autonomous Vehicles, NVIDIA
Dr. Joseph Zompetti
Full Professor of Communication, Illinois State
Please reach us at Stefan.Bauschard@gmail.com if you cannot find an answer to your question.
Schools/institutions can place any number of students on a team to write the essay. If the school team advances, the school must select two students per entry to debate online. The online debate format is 2 vs. 2.
Schools/institutions can submit as many video entries for the public speaking contest as they wish.
Schools can submit as many essays as they wish, but the students in each group must take responsibility for writing a particular essay. If a particular essay advances, the students who wrote it must compete online. Each entry must be supported by a separate fee, but the fee covers as many students in a group as the school wishes.
Yes, but they must pay both entry fees.
Non-school entries may participate, but they must either be part of an institution (for example, an after-school program) or assumed responsibility for by an adult (21+). The adult must submit the entry.
Every essay will be reviewed by 3 judges, with scores averaged. For the video debates, each debate will have 3 judges, with the students receiving the majority of votes in each debate advancing. We may add an AI judge to each stage of the competition. A rubric will be provided to the judges that the students will be able to see before they submit their essays and participate in any online debates. All essays will be anonymously reviewed (no student or school information will be present).
The same applies to the video.
Students may use as much or as little AI as they wish when submitting their essays. The important thing to consider is if the essay meets the rubric criteria and if the students will be prepared to verbally defend their arguments as well as rebut their opponents’ arguments in the elimination debates.
Elimination judges are listed above. Preliminary judges are college students, graduate students, and teachers.
We will advance up to 64 teams in each division, but no more than half the number of teams in any division (+1 if needed to get to an even number) will advance.
There is a $125 USD entry fee per submission if paid by December 1, 2024.
A "submission" is defined as the initial essay. You may have as many students as you want work on a single essay, but if the essay advances past the written rounds (the second round), you must choose two students to debate from among those who submitted the essay. Institutions may submit as many essays as they wish, but there is a separate entry fee for each submission. There is no additional judging fee.
*The price will increase to $150/entry on December 2nd
*The price will increase to $175 on January 1
*The price will increase to $225 on February 1
Note that you do not need the names of the students at this point to register. You only need the anticipated number of entries to register.
Fees for the public speaking contest are
$100 until December 1st
$125 December 1st-January 1st
$175 January 1st-February 1st
$225 February 1st-March 1st
Entries fees will be utilized to support the administration of the tournament, including small payments to the preliminary debate judges who will be reading a lot of essays and videos. Any financial surplus will be used to facilitate societal debates and discussion on AI. We are currently raising money to provide prizes for those who reach the elimination rounds.
Yes, we will make materials to support student preparation available on the website. We will also make other materials available in order to support society-wide discussion of AI.
We will use rubrics provided to the judges to score the essays as well as the format of the elimination debates by November 15, 2024. We will also share the judge training materials no later than February 1, 2025.
Similarly, we will provide sign-language services to any deaf students who reach the elimination debates.
English is the default language for the live debates, but will work with suppliers to provide ai-driven translation technologies if students wish to speak in other languages.
Similarly, we will provide sign-language services to any deaf students who reach the elimination debates.
We are actively seeking event sponsors and sponsors of the age-based divisions. We hope to provide scholarship prizes to all of the division winners and 2nd place contestants.
Powerful individuals and corporations with staggering wealth and influence are leading us into a new industrial revolution defined by artificial intelligence (AI). On its current trajectory, AI is aimed at replicating and then exceeding human-level intelligence. This AI will redefine everything, from our personal relationships to education, work, and even the very beginning and end of life.
While this technological transformation is likely inevitable, it is through our collective action that we can each find our home in this new world in a way that promotes human flourishing. The future of AI belongs to all of us, not just the limited number of individuals who are currently driving its development
Global AI Debates was created to empower students to become active participants in shaping the AI revolution, including what it means to be "AI Literate." We believe that AI literacy is not something that should be co-created through open dialogue and exchange across all members of society, including the AI systems themselves.
The decisions we make today about AI will echo through the generations. This is a chance to be part of that crucial conversation and help define the world you want to live in. Get involved in the Global AI Debates - the future is yours to shape.
It is my bias that the students themselves will start to drive this conversation. This is already starting to happen in some spaces. This is why I have said many times before that debating is one of the most important skills we can teach students in the era of AI. Dwayne Matthews, TomorrowNow Learning Labs, XPRIZE Advisor
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