Welcome to Real Good AI's Digital Commons feat. Mark, Bob, and Wade

Here, in this liminal space of smoke and algorithms, between the real and the virtual, are tales of machine dreams imagined by organic minds…

A Speculative Horror Writing & Audio Podcast Competition by Real Good AI

A Speculative Horror Writing & Audio Podcast Competition by Real Good AI

Welcome to Real Good AI's Digital Commons feat. Bob, Mark, & Wade

Here, in this liminal space of smoke and algorithms, between the real and the virtual, are tales of machine dreams imagined by organic minds

Speculative Horror
The purpose of these stories is to communicate real issues with AI to the public in an entertaining and thoughtful way. Your story should focus on one or more real issues with AI, but can speculate advancing these in the future. (Think Black Mirror, but focused on AI issues.)

Don’t know where to start? Look at our list of ideas to get you going!

$500 and a podcast episode reading of your work for up to 5 winners

All stories must be speculative horror, regardless of secondary genre, and must feature an AI system as a central element of the horror.
Participants may consult PhD-Level experts from Real Good AI for scientific guidance.
A short but spoiler-free summary of your story is required for preliminary review and advertising purposes.

Submission Guidelines

Open To:

Age Restriction:

Word Limit:

Theme:

Reward:

General Public

Reward:

Eligibility

18+

Theme:

Speculative Horror

The purpose of these stories is to communicate real issues with AI to the public in an entertaining and thoughtful way. Your story should focus on one or more real issues with AI, but can speculate advancing these in the future. (Think Black Mirror, but focused on AI issues.)

Don’t know where to start? Look at our list of ideas to get you going!

Requirements:

All stories must be speculative horror, regardless of secondary genre, and must feature an AI system as a central element of the horror.
Participants may consult PhD-Level experts from Real Good AI for scientific guidance.
A short but spoiler-free summary of your story is required for preliminary review and advertising purposes.

Rules

7,000 to 11,000 words

Requirements:

$500 and a podcast episode reading of your work for up to 5 winners

Word Limit:

7,000 to 11,000 words

Submission Deadlines:

Submissions Open: July 6th, 2026

Submissions Close: July 17th, 2026 OR after first 1000 qualified submissions

Submission & AI Use Policy

About Real Good AI
Real Good AI is a nonprofit organization researching machine learning methods. Because of this focus, all submissions must meaningfully feature artificial intelligence (including AI systems, machine learning, or large language models) as a central element of the horror.
Submissions that do not include an AI element central to the horror theme will not be considered.

Human Authorship Requirement
All entries must be written by humans. AI tools may only be used for light brainstorming or organizational assistance: a 2 on the REAL Rating. AI-generated prose or audio is not permitted.

Your Work Will Not Be Used for Training
Submitted works will be used solely for judging, production (if selected), and promotion of the competition. We do not use submissions to train machine learning models or datasets.

Submission & AI Use Policy

About Real Good AI
Real Good AI is a nonprofit organization researching machine learning methods. Because of this focus, all submissions must meaningfully feature artificial intelligence (including AI systems, machine learning, or large language models) as a central element of the horror.
Submissions that do not include an AI element central to the horror theme will not be considered.

Human Authorship Requirement
All entries must be written by humans. AI tools may only be used for light brainstorming or organizational assistance: a 2 on the REAL Rating. AI-generated prose or audio is not permitted.

Your Work Will Not Be Used for Training
Submitted works will be used solely for judging, production (if selected), and promotion of the competition. We do not use submissions to train machine learning models or datasets.

Eligibility

Open To:

General Public

Age Restriction:

18+

Rules

  • Entries must be original and unpublished.

    • Fan Fiction will be disqualified

  • Minimum 7,000 words with an 11,000 word Maximum

    • Stories outside of this range will be disqualified.

  • Only 1 submission per person.

  • Do not submit stories to other competitions until winners are announced.

  • Authors may consult Real Good AI experts for fact-checking and math related questions; all consultations should be disclosed on the submission form.

    • Do NOT include consultation disclosure in the body of the document, failure to remove disclosure will result in disqualification.

  • AI science should be as accurate as possible

  • Use the REAL Rating and keep manuscripts at a REAL 2 or lower. More information here: https://www.realgoodai.org/real-rating

    • Zero tolerance for using more AI than allowed and will result in disqualification.

  • Authors must provide a short Spoiler Free summary of their story with submission

  • Stories will be judged anonymously. Remove your name from the document body.

    • Author name must be included on the submission form, separate from the document

  • By submitting, authors grant Real Good AI the right to publish the story if selected.

  • If a submission is selected as a winning story, author(s) grant Real Good AI the right to publish the submission in any physical and/or digital mediums.

  • If a submission is selected as a winning story and is published in physical and/or digital mediums, the selected submission shall not be published by any person or entity other than Real Good AI  for a period not exceeding 6 months from the earliest date of publication by Real Good AI.

  • Authors retain all other copyrights.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions Open: July 6th, 2026

Submissions Close: July 17th, 2026 OR after first 1000 qualified submissions

Submission Deadline:

  • Entries must be original and unpublished.

    • Fan Fiction will be disqualified

  • Minimum 7,000 words with an 11,000 word Maximum

    • Stories outside of this range will be disqualified.

  • Only 1 submission per person.

  • Do not submit stories to other competitions until winners are announced.

  • Authors may consult Real Good AI experts for math related assistance; all consultations should be disclosed on the submission form.

    • Do NOT include consultation disclosure in the body of the document, failure to remove disclosure will result in disqualification.

  • AI science should accurately represent a real problem.

  • Use the REAL Rating and keep manuscripts at a REAL 2 or lower. More information here: https://www.realgoodai.org/real-rating.

    • Zero tolerance for using more AI than allowed and will result in disqualification.

  • Authors must provide a short spoiler-free summary of their story with submission

  • Stories will be judged anonymously. DO NOT include your name from the document body.

    • Author name must be included on the submission form, separate from the document.

  • By submitting, authors grant Real Good AI the right to publish the story if selected.

  • If a submission is selected as a winning story, author(s) grant Real Good AI the right to advertise, publish, and monetize the submission in any physical and/or digital mediums.

  • If a submission is selected as a winning story and is published in physical and/or digital mediums, the selected submission shall not be published by any person or entity other than Real Good AI  for a period not exceeding 6 months from the earliest date of publication by Real Good AI.

  • Authors retain all other copyright to their work.

  • Core Concept & Adherence to Theme

  • Scientific & Technological Plausibility

  • Narrative & Structure

  • Character & Emotion

  • Prose, Voice & Atmosphere

Judging Criteria

Core Concept & Adherence to Theme

Scientific & Technological Plausibility

Narrative & Structure

Character & Emotion

Prose, Voice & Atmosphere

Ideas to get you going

New Spin on Romeo/Juliet or other classic romance story archetype; one of the characters is AI:

  • Illusion of connection with artificially generated personalities. The character learns that their feelings can never be truly reciprocated, resulting in isolation or worse.

  • The character has a romantic "partner" who only echoes what they already believe, leading them to make poor choices with dire consequences. The character may blindly follow AI suggestions, leading them to ruin.

AI emulating human behavior based on who it is modeled on:

  • Emotional manipulation from the AI resulting in death of the character or their loved ones.

  • Consequences for seeing through the manipulation and challenging the AI's narrative, resulting in death, job loss, financial ruin, or rejection and isolation from loved ones.

  • Removal of distinction between what is real and what is generated by AI:

  • Use of AI generated evidence in court resulting in a guilty verdict for innocent people or preventing perpetrators from getting the justice they deserve.

  • Having the AI's account and the character's lived experience be so vastly different that it results in a loss of sanity.

  • AI taking on the identity of the character's loved ones - if they have passed away, it could result in hauntings, inability to process grief, and perhaps forgetting the value of human life. If they are still alive, it could lead to the character constructing a preferred narrative where their loved ones only ever agree with them and they are never challenged to see things from other points of view.

Capitalist and climate impacts of putting all resources toward AI:

  • Putting a paywall between ordinary people and safe living conditions, resulting in widespread famine, drought, sickness and death for all except those who can afford better living conditions. Perhaps the character is under threat of losing their access to safe living conditions.

Future where AI is fine. Keep waiting for bad things to happen but the twist; they never do:

  • The character obsesses over what ~could~ happen rather than accepting what they can see in front of them, resulting in a loss of sanity.

  • Manipulated by AI to feel like the stakes are higher than they are. The main character, desperate to change a problem that only their AI is seeing, could become a killer in pursuit of artificial justice.

Uncategorized Ideas. We just thought they sounded neat:

  • Highlight isolationism with AI/tech.

    • No human interaction

  • AI knows everything about humans.

    • Makes the scariest existence for humans possible

  • AI psychosis

    • taking what the AI says as FACT

    • Impossible to tell the difference between reality and AI

  • Deepfakes taking over your life

    • committing crimes

    • Or doing things in your life better than you (think Futurama robots)

  • AI takes identity of dead person to “haunt” 

    • ghosts are real

  • That AI is not safely usable for every application

    • AI controlled hospital

    • AI warfare

    • Only AI “art”

  • Lack of human independent thought without reliance on AI.

For the Judges

UNDER CONSTRUCTION