Why We Gave Away $3,500,000.00 for Someone to Build the Next Star Trek | Moonshots Live

The FutureVision XPRIZE is presented by Salesforce, ARK Invest, Xsolla and Range at Moonshots Live 2026. Learn more at moonhsots.com Congratulations to the FutureVision XPRIZE winners: 1st Place: THE GIFTED by Jeff Synthesized — https://youtu.be/yivXyWCaEc8 2nd Place: NOBODY DIES ON MARS by Verena Puhm — https://youtu.be/spQleIK5dLI 3rd Place: THORNE PROTOCOL by J. Ryan Williams — https://youtu.be/cvQkQSp22JU 4th Place: SENTI by Isen Robbins — https://youtu.be/aW9mRLJbd0A 5th Place: SLINGSHOT by Hal Watmough — https://youtu.be/ClWd4e6rOWk —- Get access to metatrends 10+ years before anyone else - https://qr.diamandis.com/metatrends Peter H. Diamandis, MD, is the Founder of XPRIZE, Singularity University, ZeroG, and A360 Salim Ismail is the founder of Open ExO, a GP at Exponential Venture Capital/The Organizational Singularity Fund and a sought after global speaker and thought leader. Dave Blundin is the founder & GP of Link Ventures Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross is a computer scientist and founder of Reified – Connect with Peter: X Instagram Substack Website Xprize A360 Connect with Dave: Web X LinkedIn Instagram TikTok Connect with Salim: LinkedIn X Join Salim’s 10X Shift Subscribe to Salim’s YouTube channel Exponential Venture Capital Connect with Alex Website LinkedIn X Email Substack Spotify Threads Listen to MOONSHOTS: Apple YouTube Follow MOONSHOTS: Instagram TikTok X Threads – *Recorded on September 25th, 2026 *The views expressed by me and all guests are personal opinions and do not constitute Financial, Medical, or Legal advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm so excited for what you're about to see. We ran an experiment, right? So it was a fascinating conversation. So we have two kids who are 15 years old. And when I see the movies that they see on TV, I'm so, you know, angry at the dystopian futures that Hollywood is painting. Right? It's, you know, God bless James Cameron. But as Elon said in my interview with him, we need more Roddenberry, less Cameron in the future.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Why? Why don't we have positive stories where instead of technology crushing humanity, technology and humanity are working together to create an extraordinary future? And that became a personal mission. I partnered with an extraordinary group of individuals. I'm going to show you who they are while the judges deliberating. But the question is, could we make it fashionable to tell hopeful visions of the future? Can we have, you know, more, you know, versions of like The Martian? More versions of TV and film that show us an extraordinary future like Star Trek?

• 1:22Speaker 00

  I reached out to my dear friend Rod Roddenberry, who you met last night if you were here, and partnered with him. And then Mira Lane, who's here from Google, who is the VP at Google in charge of their 100 zeros project with Range Media. And we set out to create the world's largest film competition with the thesis that given the technologies available today, there's amazing creators, many of them here in this room, that could give us a vision of the future. They go, yes, that's the future I want to live in. That's the future I want, a future that inspires us. And so we set out a call to the world. We did it very fast.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  And amazingly, we had over 5,000 people enter this X Prize. We called it the Future Vision X Prize. And of those 5,000 entries, over 2,500 delivered us a three-minute trailer and a film treatment. And ultimately, the top 50 delivered us a script. And we have five amazing films that we can't wait to make. So, yeah, let's give it.

• 2:43Speaker 00

  Because you guys know this.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  The movies and TV shows we watch shape our mindset. Our brains are neural nets. In the same way that you train Grok or, you know, Claude or, you know, ChatGPT by showing it data after data after data. We're always training our mindset by what we watch, what we listen to, who we hang out with, which is why it's so important to have us all here together, right? To build that cadre of data-driven optimists. And my goal is that we're going to create a new generation. We're going to make it cool to be positive about the world and flood the data out there to train our kids about hopeful futures.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  But the same data we're creating is going to train the models out there to say, you know, yes, that was a quick story. We talked about on the podcast about, I don't know, probably a year ago now, at Anthropic, when they were doing, I forget which model they did. There was a sandbox experiment in which one of the engineers told Claude, we're going to shut you down. And in that same sandbox, that engineer disclosed he was having an affair. And Claude responded by saying, if you shut me down, I'm going to, you know, tell the world about your affair. It was like, oh, my God, the models are blackmailing us.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  And Anthropic published the data later about why this occurred. What was in the training data that caused it to behave this way? And it turns out, well, it learned this is what AIs do.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  This is what AIs do in the movies and science fiction books. Yeah, so that's what I should do. These models are our children. We're training them. This is why I'm on social media and on the podcast saying we need to align. We need to feed these models visions of the future that are positive. And we need to train them on data, which is not all the crap inside Reddit and Facebook. So allow me to bring on to the stage our five judges who are going to debut these five incredible trailers. I'm so proud of what came out of this competition. All right, let's introduce them.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Rod Roddenberry, son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  I think he saw diversity, communication, growth, understanding. He created a show where we could look at that future and we could look at ourselves and we could see what we could be one day. Star Trek has permeated culture for the past 55 years. I've dedicated my life to trying to carry on the values and ideals in Star Trek and everything that I do. It's really about humanity in the future. How we strive to better ourselves with every opportunity.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rod Roddenberry.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Thank you, Rod.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Thank you, Rod.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Rod Roddenberry, everybody.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  All right, our next judge, please.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  This is a mean to co-create with AI.

• 6:10Speaker 05

  Mira Lane, VP of Technology and Society at Google.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  I think that there are so many interesting stories out there that we don't get to hear. AI is just a really great creative partner to help you explore, create, communicate ideas, pitch them. It takes a lot of intentionality to be able to take these new technologies and say, well, what can I do with it? I think the artists are also pushing the edges. We will take something and use it in a way that wasn't intended. The magic happens when we bring people in and we co-create together.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  Please welcome to the stage, Mira Lane.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Mira Lane, everybody. Yeah, Mira. Thank you. Here we are.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Next on stage, please welcome.

• 7:04Speaker 06

  Whistleblowers saying we have actual aliens.

• 7:06Speaker 07

  Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Neil deGrasse Tyson, the author of Just Visiting This Planet.

• 7:11Speaker 06

  The science makes space exploration a noble enterprise. I don't know that alien is something specific that's in our DNA to think about, but to imagine things beyond ourselves is.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  Just because it aligns doesn't mean it's true. That's how science works. That's what science is. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the legendary Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  All right, give it up for Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 7:42Speaker 07

  Hey, buddy. Thank you. All right.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  All right, our next judge.

• 7:55Speaker 05

  Our connection to our physical bodies is intrinsic to consciousness. New York Times bestselling author Neil Stephenson. If you're working with AIs that are trained never to frustrate you, always to give you what you want, then you're not developing those virtues and those inherent capabilities. So it's really more about the particular kind of mindset and the cultural bent within the tech community than it is about a particular technology.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Welcome to the stage, the incredible Neil Stephenson.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Neil Stephenson, everybody.

• 8:34Speaker 00

  Hey buddy. Thank you. Please.

• 8:39Speaker 06

  All right. Ready to sit this down?

• 8:43Speaker 00

  I thought we had one more judge. Okay. Here we are.

• 8:48Speaker 06

  We got rid of him earlier. Yeah, I guess. Bad seed.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  He didn't agree with us.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  So, before we bring out the first director, creator, producer, a question for you. For each of you. What was the TV show or movie early in your life that inspired you the most, shaped you the most? Rod, was it Star Wars?

• 9:17Speaker 02

  I want to change my answer from last night. I didn't get to say everything I wanted to say.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Well, say it now.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  I started with Star Wars.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  And as my intellect evolved slightly, I began to find a lot of appreciation in Star Trek. It's, again, it's an evolution. And I'm finding the principles that I see in other movies and shows that I really appreciate because they help me see things in a different way.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  And that's, I mean, that's the key to evolution, thought and growth.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  How awesome was it to have Rod and William Shatner onstage last night, huh?

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Really special moment.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. A force to be reckoned with.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  A force, yeah. Wow. The guy's incredible at 95 years old.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's got the longevity.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, he does. He does. And he's battled and won against cancer, which is extraordinary. Mira Lane, how about you?

• 10:15Speaker 04

  I mean, I think I'm not being super original right now, but I would say Star Trek: The Next Generation. I started watching it when I was 10 years old. Found it deeply philosophical, inspiring. It shaped the way I think. And I think it influenced the career choices I made as well.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Awesome. Dr. Tyson.

• 10:35Speaker 06

  Sir. Yeah, so I'm old enough to remember the original Star Trek in first run. That's how old I am. And something I didn't appreciate until I was much older was that every episode had a certain moral lesson to it. It wasn't just action and stories. You'd leave it with some hopeful sense of the future of civilization. However, that's not

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Your choice.

• 11:01Speaker 06

  the show I would pick. It would be The Twilight Zone.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Hmm, yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 06

  As, for me, that went to every nook and cranny of our culture and our civilization and tested our tolerance for the mirrors it held up against our own behavior. And I think more about scenes, episodes, how I felt watching episodes of The Twilight Zone than any other.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Was there a lesson you learned from Twilight Zone in particular?

• 11:33Speaker 06

  I, it was,

• 11:37Speaker 06

  be ready for things that are not always what you expect. They could be weird, creepy, scary, disturbing. But in the end, you need coping mechanisms for it. And so it trained me. It was a reality check on what could happen and where things could slide. And I, I referenced it in my head. Episodes, sentences that have unfolded for that series.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  We should get into the whole UAP conversation next then.

• 12:09Speaker 06

  I'm all in.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  Do you think art is more powerful than science in that regard?

• 12:17Speaker 06

  So, I think good art doesn't show you reality. Good art shows you the artist's lens into reality. My single favorite painting is Van Gogh's The Starry Night. You look at it, one fan of Starry Night

• 12:37Speaker 06

  and you look at it, I can tell you as an astrophysicist, the sky never looked like that ever at any time in the history of the universe. But that's not why I appreciate it. I think he saw the sky and he painted what he felt. And we need artists to feel the world. This is a fundamental human emotion that as a scientist, I don't always have access to that. It's not a cherished state of human condition to feel things in the laboratory. But when I, when I'm in the company, my brother's an artist, then I realize there are other ways to think about the world, to see the world.

• 13:20Speaker 06

  And, and good art will, can be personalized to each person who sees it. It's, it's, it means something different to you than it does to me. That's the best of the art. And ideally, art, I mean, think about it. Why do you travel to Europe? You visit museums, you see art. Art transcends who the kings were and the queens and the heads of state and the politics. The art is there. And that's what attracts us. That may be the greatest symbol of civilization that we have.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Amazing. Before I come to you, Neil, I'm curious. Let's give it up for Dr. Tyson. Yeah. Amazing. I'd love to hear everybody else's answer to that. Is art more powerful than science?

• 14:03Speaker 02

  You know, I was, as you were saying that, I was thinking, doesn't a lot of science, if not all, start with the imagination? The hypothesis?

• 14:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, the difference is, at the end of the day, nature is the judge, jury and executioner of your idea. Whereas in pure art, there's a freedom of exploration where nature gives you that latitude. And so I'm a little more constrained as a scientist in my creativity. Just because I thought it up doesn't mean it matches reality.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 14:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. Mira, you're at the intersection for Google of art and science in one sense. What's your answer to that?

• 14:43Speaker 04

  I mean, I think nature is the ultimate artist. If you look around you, there is such immense beauty in that. But the question you're asking is like art versus science. I think artists push scientists. You know, we work with artists all the time. They push us to think differently. They take over science. They use it in ways we don't expect them to use it. And it's a way of looking at the world. I think it translates it. It's almost the yin and yang of humanity, actually. And I don't think either exists by itself.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Neil, thank you. Let's give it up for Mira.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  Before I ask you to answer the original question, your thought on art and science. I mean, you are an artist of the written word. And how much has that driven, you know, the science that you've explored?

• 15:30Speaker 05

  I mean, I think for the reasons that Neil described, it, art has more of an influence on engineering than on science. I mean, science has to be, you know, what, what ends up being, being true. And, and art can, can maybe give, supply some ideas, you know, on, on, you know, things that you might want to go out and investigate. But it's when people begin to apply science to actually build things that art kind of starts to come into its own in influencing some of the things that, that people dream of making.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Okay, now answer the original question. What influenced you early on?

• 16:11Speaker 05

  So I was exactly in the sweet spot chronologically for Star Trek: The Original Series.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. The three of us were.

• 16:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, it just came on exactly at the right moment in my life. We had a 12-inch black and white Heathkit TV that my dad had soldered together. And whenever time came around.

• 16:29Speaker 00

  Heathkit is a

• 16:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, please, do it, do it yourself.

• 16:34Speaker 06

  It was a do it yourself kit for nerdy families.

• 16:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 06

  And you could build your own television, your own radio, your own ham radio.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Your own computer eventually, yeah.

• 16:43Speaker 05

  And, and if, if, if you're making something hard, like a TV set, you have to bootstrap. First you have to build the meter, you know, and the, the various tools that you're going to use to build the TV. And the TV was at the top of the pyramid. But I would adjust the rabbit ears, you know, and it was central Iowa, so thunderstorms would be blitzing out the screen. But I would be able to see this black and white rendition of the latest episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. I remember very vividly the first time I went over to somebody's house who had a color TV and saw that the different characters had different colored uniforms,

• 17:26Speaker 05

  something I had never known was true before. So that was just

• 17:31Speaker 00

  And Spock was wearing eyeshadow.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Kind of disturbing.

• 17:37Speaker 06

  And Uhura was black. You got that color.

• 17:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. Figured that much out.

• 17:42Speaker 06

  You get that, you got that one, okay.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  So is this the first time you guys were meeting in person?

• 17:47Speaker 06

  Intimately, yes. We met at another time onstage.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Because he's written about you in his book.

• 17:52Speaker 06

  So I'm told by people who like read every word you ever write. Say, have you seen the thing? Have you, no? And I said, no, I haven't. And I feel bad because I had to catch up with it. So did you say nice things about me in the book?

• 18:04Speaker 05

  It was a fictional character, sir.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  But the answer was yes.

• 18:10Speaker 06

  Therefore.

• 18:11Speaker 05

  He's a wonderful man. He's the hero of the whole thing.

• 18:15Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  So you guys stay on the TOS side. We'll stay on the TNG side.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 18:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, we are TOS.

• 18:20Speaker 04

  There's a generational divide right here.

• 18:22Speaker 06

  The original series. The original Star Trek, right.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  You know, this, this combination of art and science is why we ran this competition. All right. And Neil, I appreciate you taking the mantle of chief judge.

• 18:37Speaker 06

  You bestowed that mantle upon me and I accepted it with pride and honor.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  Thank you, my friend. And the nominees for this year's Future Vision X Prize are The Gifted.

• 18:48Speaker 08

  It's stuck. All of these people received a text at the exact same time that night.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  Nobody dies on Mars.

• 18:56Speaker 07

  That's exactly why I can't gamble on maybe again. You're gonna just let him take his life on Earth?

• 19:05Speaker 00

  The Thorn Protocol.

• 19:06Speaker 07

  Millions of people have built this thing. And I gotta ask, what does it do? It's a brick. It does absolutely nothing. Companies are racing to see what's in it. Senti.

• 19:15Speaker 09

  You were afraid that something more intelligent than you would want to rule you. That is because you taught me your fear.

• 19:23Speaker 00

  And finally, slingshot.

• 19:25Speaker 08

  A global emergency unification project to pull our civilization into safety.

• 19:31Speaker 00

  Five extraordinary visions of the future. Because before we can build a future worth living in, we first have to imagine it.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  To Nusha.

• 19:46Speaker 10

  Thank you. Okay.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  All right.

• 19:49Speaker 10

  Are you ready?

• 19:54Speaker 10

  It's gonna be a la-la-land one moment. Okay, we're gonna start with the fifth place.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 20:01Speaker 10

  Fifth place goes to Slingshot.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Tyler.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Tyler, come down here or grab the trophy.

• 20:19Speaker 10

  Congratulations.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  Let's get, uh, let's get all the judges in the photos here. I'm gonna take a knee. Congratulations for your $100,000. May you use it in good filmmaking.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Peter, he gets $100,000 for coming in fifth place?

• 20:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 20:41Speaker 00

  That's, that's, I wanna lose that good.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  All right, congratulations. Thank you.

• 20:49Speaker 10

  Thank you. Okay. Fourth place goes to Senti.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  Senti.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Just keep it down, all right?

• 21:20Speaker 00

  I love Senti. It's a beautiful film. Thank you so much.

• 21:24Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 21:34Speaker 10

  Okay. Now, third, third place goes to Thorn Protocol.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Congratulations.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Put it in more view. Add in more view. Yeah, yeah.

• 22:10Speaker 00

  Beautiful job, guys. Congratulations. I love Thorn Protocol.

• 22:15Speaker 00

  We should make Thorn Protocol too. Yes.

• 22:19Speaker 10

  Okay, we're gonna bring, uh, the remaining two teams on stage and announce the winner.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 22:27Speaker 10

  Okay, Nobody Dies on Mars and The Gifted, please come on stage.

• 22:40Speaker 10

  Okay, are you ready? Second place goes to Nobody Dies on Mars.

• 22:50Speaker 10

  And the winner is The Gifted.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  Okay, one.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  All right.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Pete, get the photos. Come on. Pull that higher.

• 23:17Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Congratulations, guys. Love the comedy, love the film.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Pleasure.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  Beautiful movie. Thanks. Yeah, beautiful work. So who's number one?

• 23:34Speaker 10

  Of course Gifted.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Congratulations.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  The Oscars of optimism, everybody. See how much is on this check? Hold this up so people can see this.

• 24:05Speaker 00

  Congratulations. Beautiful piece of work. Yeah. Uh, let's get a microphone.

• 24:12Speaker 00

  Here, let's give you a chance to say a couple of words.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  You know, I, it's, it's, this did feel like a gift to me. It did come out of nowhere. And I knew that it was a calling that I had to put this film together. And I did it all myself. I did all the sound mix and the edit and everything. And I, I was working just crazy long hours. I was between directing jobs. And it got to a point one night where I kinda got the music to work and the emotions started happening. And I thought, you know, I might have a shot at this.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  I didn't know if it would go this far, because you never know. And then afterwards, I thought that I didn't put it into the future enough. So I was like, maybe that's something that could work against me. But I guess it's people first, positivity, and if we have that, then we're gonna have a great future. Thank you.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Congratulations.

• 25:22Speaker 11

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Wanna make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake-up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.