"Out of this Box! - The Last Musical (Written by Humans)"

We have validated the artistic value of our show; this grant would test whether it can become a scalable and repeatable form of AI-safety outreach.

Endorsed by

Ryan

We have validated the artistic value of our show; this grant would test whether it can become a scalable and repeatable form of AI-safety outreach.

Endorsed by

Ryan

Project Details

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1F-sKkhWJbfk1_aYNAkpu2aodUHm4ErHRLgtEBZgbHH0/edit?usp=sharing

You are welcome to look through our slide deck which includes photos and videos, testimonials, as well as a detailed strategy.

In summary: Out of This Box! is a comedy musical about the race to develop transformative AI and the moral choices faced by the people involved. Following successful public performances in Berlin in September and October 2025, as well as screenings of our 2024 preview show in diverse AIS and tech spaces around the world, we want to turn the recording of our full show into high-quality material that can engage an even larger audience.

So far, Out of This Box! has gained strong endorsement from respected people both within the EA/AIS community (e.g., Ryan Kidd, Taylor Jones) as well as mainstream theatre critics (e.g., Paul Graham Brown, Rosalie Rittmann). We sold 600 tickets to our public Berlin public performances and presented the show to approximately 400 attendees at EAGxBerlin. Recordings of the 2024 preview have subsequently reached an estimated 500 viewers through organized screenings. It has been lauded as "hilariously funny", "deeply emotional" and "shockingly relevant" from audience members of our public and private shows September/October 2025.

This application will help us to bring our show to more people.

We want to produce a well-edited film recording from the video and sound material that we recorded at the Berlin shows 2025. We did that for the preview show 2024, which has been screened at EAGxs, multiple ML4Good bootcamps, tech coworking spaces etc. The 2025 show additionally features a larger stage design, 8 instrumentalists, 5 more songs and crucially the ending (last 25 minutes) of the play that had been omitted from the preview.
We would like to contract a professional outreach producer experienced in theatre programming and cultural events to design a slide deck and identify and reach out to events such as re:publica, Ars Electronica, AI for Good Film Festival, Mozilla Festival, Prague or Camden Fringe, and similar tech and theatre events. The comedic material can be a crucial foot in the door to platform AIS at these events.
We want to create a cast albums, which is how new musicals are discovered and shared amongst fans and creators online. Together with a professional slide deck, this is how we would approach theatre producers in different cities to bring the live show to more people.

Theory of Impact

The project has three aims:

Serve as educational material for audiences so far not engaged with the AI alignment problem: journalists, politician and society at large. It is playfully explaining concepts such as: capability evals, deceptive alignment, superhuman persuasion and the technological singularity, as well as illustrating the interests and incentives for engineers, investors and ethicists in the race towards AGI.
We aim to reach the AI engineers at frontier labs and make them aware of the moral choices they are facing. Our story provides role models that take difficult moral actions (whistleblowing, insisting on safety measures, confronting their colleagues) in the face of adversity. We hypothesize that comedy and character-driven storytelling can engage audiences who might resist a conventional advocacy presentation, and want to test this through audience surveys and interviews.
Serve as fun community building material that can be screened for summer schools, bootcamps, introductory courses, etc. We want to make people within the community feel seen and encouraged in their personal quest to contribute to one of humanity's biggest challenges. This has already happened at MATS, several ML4Good Bootcams, EAGxOslo and Prague, LISA, GovAI always with resoundingly positive feedback. Our slide deck includes some feedback from the EAGxBerlin feedback form as well as interviews after the public shows.

People

Stephan Wäldchen

Team Member

Grants Received– no grants recorded

Add grant

Funding Asks

grantmaking.ai Launch Round

Applied

Minimum

$16,106

Ideal

$49,221

What this ask is

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1F-sKkhWJbfk1_aYNAkpu2aodUHm4ErHRLgtEBZgbHH0/edit?usp=sharing

You are welcome to look through our slide deck which includes photos and videos, testimonials, as well as a detailed strategy.

In summary: Out of This Box! is a comedy musical about the race to develop transformative AI and the moral choices faced by the people involved. Following successful public performances in Berlin in September and October 2025, as well as screenings of our 2024 preview show in diverse AIS and tech spaces around the world, we want to turn the recording of our full show into high-quality material that can engage an even larger audience.

We want to produce a well-edited film recording from the video and sound material that we recorded at the Berlin shows 2025. We did that for the preview show 2024, which has been screened at EAGxs, multiple ML4Good bootcamps, tech coworking spaces etc. The 2025 show additionally features a larger stage design, 8 instrumentalists, 5 more songs and crucially the ending (last 25 minutes) of the play that had been omitted from the preview.
We would like to contract a professional outreach producer experienced in theatre programming and cultural events to design a slide deck and identify and reach out to events such as re:publica, Ars Electronica, AI for Good Film Festival, Mozilla Festival, Prague or Camden Fringe, and similar tech and theatre events. The comedic material can be a crucial foot in the door to platform AIS at these events.
We want to create a cast albums, which is how new musicals are discovered and shared amongst fans and creators online. Together with a professional slide deck, this is how we would approach theatre producers in different cities to bring the live show to more people.

How the money will be spent

The minimal and ideal amount correspond to the minimal and medium budget plan in the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sCS2k680qZpk3gcgTJw4nNLgren50yFXhGKAa2TgNeI/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Discussion

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