The line between real and synthetic is blurring fast. AI-generated content is now indistinguishable from human-created media. Coordinated disinformation campaigns run at machine speed. Social engineering attacks are personalized at scale. And our defensive infrastructure is nowhere close to keeping up.

This hackathon brings together 500+ builders to prototype systems that could help us detect, counter, and defend against AI-enabled manipulation. You'll have one intensive weekend to build something real – tools that could actually help people distinguish truth from synthetic deception.

Top teams get:

• 💰 $2,000 in cash prizes

• The chance to continue development through Apart Research's Fellowship program

Apply if you believe we need better tools to protect truth and trust in an AI-saturated world.

In this hackathon, you can build:

• Deepfake detection system that analyzes video, audio, and images for synthetic artifacts and provides confidence scores to help users verify authenticity

• Disinformation tracking platform that monitors coordinated inauthentic behavior across social platforms and identifies AI-generated campaign patterns at scale

• Social engineering defense tool that warns users about AI-powered phishing, spear-phishing, and manipulation attempts by detecting linguistic patterns and behavioral anomalies

• Synthetic media provenance tracker that creates tamper-proof chains of custody for digital content, making it easier to verify original sources

• Pursue other defensive projects that help people navigate an increasingly manipulated information environment

You'll work in teams over one weekend and submit open-source tools, detection models, analysis frameworks, or research prototypes that advance our ability to defend against AI-enabled manipulation.

What is AI manipulation?

AI manipulation refers to the use of artificial intelligence to deceive, mislead, or coerce people at scale. This includes deepfakes that impersonate real individuals, coordinated disinformation campaigns that flood platforms with synthetic content, personalized social engineering attacks that exploit individual vulnerabilities, and automated propaganda systems that shift public opinion through manufactured consensus.

The problem isn't just that AI can create convincing fakes – it's that AI can create them faster than humans can verify, personalize them based on psychological profiles, and coordinate them across platforms in ways that overwhelm traditional fact-checking.

What makes this particularly dangerous is the asymmetry: creating synthetic content is getting easier and cheaper, while verifying authenticity remains expensive and slow. A single person with access to modern AI tools can now generate thousands of convincing fake personas, fabricated videos, or coordinated disinformation posts. Meanwhile, our verification infrastructure still relies largely on manual review by human fact-checkers.

Why this hackathon?

The Problem

We're entering a world where "pics or it didn't happen" no longer works as evidence. AI can now generate photorealistic images, clone voices with seconds of audio, and create videos that pass casual inspection. Language models write in styles indistinguishable from specific human authors. Automated systems coordinate inauthentic behavior across thousands of accounts simultaneously.

This isn't a future problem – it's happening now. Election interference campaigns use AI to generate localized disinformation. Scammers clone voices to impersonate family members in distress. State actors deploy synthetic personas to build trust before launching influence operations. And we're drastically under-equipped to respond.

The tools we have – reverse image search, manual fact-checking, reactive content moderation – were built for a pre-AI world. They don't scale to the speed and sophistication of modern manipulation techniques.

Why AI Manipulation Defense Matters Now

Trust is infrastructure. When people can't distinguish real from fake, democratic deliberation breaks down, financial markets become vulnerable to manipulation, and interpersonal relationships suffer. The cost of verification can't exceed the cost of creation, or truth loses by default.

Right now, we're massively under-investing in manipulation defense. Most effort flows into reactive content moderation or trying to prevent model capabilities from advancing. Far less goes into building proactive detection systems, provenance tracking, or tools that help people themselves evaluate what's real.

That gap is dangerous. Better defensive technology could:

Give people real-time tools to verify what they're seeing

Help platforms detect coordinated manipulation before it spreads

Create transparency around synthetic content without censoring it

Build the forensic infrastructure we need for digital evidence to remain credible

Restore some symmetry between creation and verification costs

Who should participate?

This hackathon is for people who want to build solutions to technological risk using technology itself.

You should participate if:

• You're an engineer or developer who wants to work on consequential problems

• You're a researcher ready to validate ideas through practical implementation

• You believe that strengthening the shield is as important as blunting the spear

• You have technical skills and genuine urgency about building better defenses

• You're frustrated that defensive work is underfunded relative to its importance

You don't need deep domain expertise in biosecurity or cybersecurity, though it helps. What matters: ability to build functional systems, willingness to learn quickly over a compressed timeframe, and real conviction that this work matters.

Some of the most valuable defensive innovations come from people who aren't constrained by conventional thinking about how things "should" be done. Fresh perspectives combined with solid technical capabilities often yield the most novel approaches.

What you will do

Participants will:

• Form teams or join existing groups.

• Develop projects over an intensive hackathon weekend.

• Submit open-source forecasting models, scenario analyses, monitoring tools, or empirical research advancing our understanding of AI trajectories

What happens next

Winning and promising projects will be:

• Awarded with $10,000 worth of prizes in cash.

• Awarded a fully-funded trip to London to take part in BlueDot Impact's December Incubator Accelerator week (Dec 1-5)

• Guaranteed spot in BlueDot Impact AGI Strategy course.

• Invited to continue development within the Apart Fellowship.

Why join?

• Impact: Your work may directly inform AI governance decisions and help society prepare for transformative AI

• Mentorship: Expert forecasters, AI researchers, and policy practitioners will guide projects throughout the hackathon

• Community: Collaborate with peers from across the globe working to understand AI's trajectory and implications

• Visibility: Top projects will be featured on Apart Research's platforms and connected to follow-up opportunities