Klara and the Sun essay contest - Winners panel discussion

Donald McKendrick (1st place), Morgan Shnier (2nd place), and Caitlin Krause (honorary mention) joined Will Penman to discuss the Klara and the Sun essay contest, which ran summer 2026 and came with a $1,000 prize. The topic of the essay was AI safety; essays were allowed to be written with AI; and essays were scored with an LLM auto-grader that used a hidden scholarly rubric with 176 points available. Will judged each finalist essay by hand and gave extended commentary. Contest website: https://willpenman.com/klara/ Introductions, how people found the contest: 0:00 - 7:00 What did it FEEL like to enter?: 7:00 - 26:15 Is this the future of AI? 26:30 - 50:00 Detour - how will Klara and the Sun movie be received? 50:00-54:00 Back to the contest, what DOES the novel say about AI safety? 54:00-end