Project summary

"Out of This Box: The Last Musical (Written By Humans)" is a witty, entertaining musical about AI safety that follows the story of Celephaïs, a startup that creates the first artificial superintelligence, Jean-Luc. Through humour and relatable characters, the musical explores important concepts and concerns around AI development and alignment. After the success of our preview in Berlin, we're now ready to stage the complete version for public audiences, bringing these crucial conversations about AI safety to a broader community through the accessible medium of musical theatre.

We plan on staging the musical in autumn 2025 in Berlin, starting rehearsals in June. Professional recordings from these performances will be edited, cut and shared for widespread reach. Given sufficient funding, we aim to also bring performances to events in the US and Europe.

You can check out some footage, excited audience reactions, social media and even chat with Jean-Luc on our website, OutOfThisBox.show.

Note: Depending on the amount raised, we may also create a crowd-funding campaign on a traditional platform afterwards. Because Manifund is intended for charitable donations, we won't offer supporter rewards here like we would if we end up launching another campaign. If you're interested in supporting us but only for a cool reward, please contact us!

For major supporters of this project we will be in touch (if you agree) to discuss how we can thank you for making this musical happen.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

Our primary goal is to communicate complex AI safety concepts to general audiences and influential individuals in an engaging, memorable format through musical theatre. We aim to:

1. Popularise ideas about AI safety and communicate them to large audiences. The show is funny, catchy and engaging even for audiences that aren't familiar with the topic. This includes illustrating misalignment, superhuman persuasion, loss of control scenarios, capability evals, compute restrictions and deceptive behaviour. These concepts are woven into the story rather than abstractly explained.

2. Encourage people in key positions (e.g. engineers, whistleblowers) to be aware of moral choices: The musical considers the dilemma faced by people directly involved in the creation of superintelligent AI. We want to make these stakeholders feel seen in their struggle and support them with a narrative of doing the right thing even if it involves sacrifices.

To accomplish this, our object-level goals are:

1. Stage the full 2:20-hour version of "Out of This Box" for public audiences (standard duration for musicals)

2. Create high-quality recordings and production materials to expand our reach

3. Foster meaningful discussions about AI safety among diverse audiences who might not otherwise engage with these topics

We'll achieve these goals by:

• Securing venue(s)

• Assembling a talented cast and production team, including sound, lighting, set and costume design

• Developing promotional materials to reach a wide audience of people within AI spaces and the general populace, as well as the AI Safety crowd

• Executing our already existing rehearsal plan

• Filming, editing, releasing and publicising the full staging of the show

How will this funding be used?

Funding will support:

• Cast and crew compensation

• Set, costume, and prop production

• Sound and lighting equipment rental and operation

• Marketing and promotional materials

• Professional recording of the performance

• Rehearsal & Performance spaces

• Stretch goals (see below)

  • Cast album

  • Travel performances

We have three "tiers" of goals, since different-sized budgets will be spread differently.

Tier I: Minimum Funding Goal (€17.250, $18,650)

With our minimum funding of €17.250, we will produce a lean but complete version of our musical. This budget includes:

• Production: €2700 for basic salaries for our writers and composers

• Performance:

  • €5.700 for theatre fees

  • €2.500 for a cast of 5 performers (no understudies)

  • €1.500 for a minimal instrumental ensemble (piano, bass, and drums)

  • €1.550 for minimalist rehearsal rooms across 31 sessions

  • €1.000 for minimalist and repurposed set design

  • €400 for costumes using materials we have on hand plus minimal additional procurement

  • €400 for basic lighting design

• Outreach:

  • No cast album at this tier

  • €400 for a simple two-angle video recording using borrowed equipment

  • €600 for sound mixing (symbolic compensation for volunteer)

  • €500 volunteer digital marketing budget

  • Performances limited to Berlin only

This tier represents the baseline for bringing our vision to the stage while maintaining artistic quality on a constrained budget.

Tier II: Target Funding Goal (€29.800, $32,200)

Reaching our target funding of €29.800 significantly enhances production quality across all aspects:

• Production: €5.400 allows our writers and composers more dedicated time to refine and perfect the material as well as access to advanced composition tools

• Performance:

  • €5.700 for theatre fees

  • €5.000 for 5 regular cast members plus 5 understudies, ensuring show continuity

  • €3.000 for an expanded instrumental ensemble (piano, bass, drums, guitar, and 2 brass instruments)

  • €2.000 for 40 rehearsal sessions

  • €2.500 for specially designed set pieces

  • €1.000 for better quality costume materials

  • €800 for expert lighting design

• Outreach:

  • €1.000 for a home studio recording of a cast album

  • €1.200 to rent professional video recording equipment

  • €1.200 for professional sound mixing

  • €1.000 for semi-professional marketing including poster design, website development, regular social media presence, and outreach to influencers

  • Performances still based in Berlin

This tier represents a considerable upgrade in production values and reach, allowing us to present a more polished and professional performance.

Tier III: Ideal Funding Goal - Bay Area Performances (€62.400, $67,450)

With our stretch goal of €62.400, we can create a truly professional-grade production with a significant reach to new audiences:

• Production: €16.200 for substantially increased salaries, allowing creative team members to fully commit to the project as well as outsourcing tasks to professionals

• Performance:

  • €5.700 for theatre fees

  • Same €5.000 cast budget as Tier II (5 regular performers + 5 understudies)

  • Same €3.000 instrumental ensemble as Tier II

  • €3.000 for 40 regular rehearsal sessions plus 4 additional sessions on actual stages

  • €6.000 for a professional set designer and custom-built set pieces

  • €4.500 for a dedicated costume designer and premium materials

  • €800 for expert lighting design (same as Tier II)

• Outreach:

  • €4.000 for a professional studio album recording

  • €2.500 for rented equipment and professional camera operators

  • €1.200 for professional sound mixing (same as Tier II)

  • €3.000 for comprehensive professional marketing including targeted advertisements in tech circles

  • €7.500 to expand performances beyond Berlin to include the Bay Area

At this level, our project achieves professional production standards and international reach, maximizing both artistic quality and audience engagement across two key tech hubs.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Our core team includes: Stephan Wäldchen (co-author, director), Lara Weber (co-author, musical director), Aron Mill (Assistant director) and Guy (Producer)

Track record:

• We successfully staged a 1:50-hour shortened version of the musical in Berlin in 2024. That production made it clear that we are ready to scale up and bring this creation to the world. We performed in front of an audience of ~300 attendees of the EAGx Berlin 2024 and received overwhelmingly positive feedback (see some audience feedback here). In addition to the EAGx attendees, 70 people unrelated to EA attended and an informal poll indicated that many were encouraged to think about and discuss AI safety concerns.
  Due to time constraints the whole performance was rehearsed in only one month.

• Our core team complement each other perfectly for the writing process. Lara Weber is a trained pianist and composer. She studied at the University of Arts Berlin (Udk) and the "Hochschule für Künste" Bremen (HfK) and has many years of experience of writing music. Stephan Wäldchen, AI researcher with a PhD in maths and AI interpretability, was involved in and performed in several independent musicals in Germany as well as being a voice actor for the official HPMoR podcast. He is also a brilliant story teller and stand-up comedian. Guy, likewise an AI researcher and trained actor/singer, directed, co-produced and performed in many musical theatre and music productions for audiences of thousands and more. Aron has been working on solutions to extreme catastrophes such as nuclear winter, supervolcanic eruptions and asteroid Impacts. At the same time, he is passionate about exploring the role of AI in our society and risks from AI on our future, through worldbuilding, short stories, art installations, and now — a musical.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

Potential causes of failure:

• Insufficient audience attendance due to marketing challenges or competition from other events (Berlin theatre scene is highly competitive)

• Insufficient redundancy in cast and crew combined with chance illness

• Budget overruns affecting production quality

Outcomes if unsuccessful:

• Limited reach of important AI safety concepts to general audiences

• Possible reputation damage to AI safety concepts

Risk mitigation strategies:

• Although the musical theatre market in Berlin is highly competitive, the tech crowd hungers for AI events. One of the team members is the organiser of the Berlin AI Safety community and can confirm that getting AI entrepreneurs to come to your event is at least as easy as getting theatre fans.

• We plan to do casting with redundancy as well as maintain a high bus factor throughout cast and crew.

• In 2024 we put up a high-quality production (see media) with close to no budget. If we discover we're above our minimum but lacking due to miscalculations or unforeseeable circumstances, we will use our scrappy superpowers to make the production worthwhile.

• Experts in AI safety outreach that were present at our performance have highly praised the production as highly impactful

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

So far we worked on the production on our own time and money, and received donations at the staging and screening events, totalling €3.013 which went towards covering the cost of the Berlin staging.