Forecasting prize competition

(a) Establishment The Director of the National Science Foundation (referred to in this section as the Director) shall establish a recurring prize competition to incentivize accurate forecasts and informative rationales for short-horizon questions that are informative for understanding or addressing labor-market implications of artificial intelligence (as defined in section 3). (b) Eligibility To be eligible to win a cash prize purse under this section, an individual or entity— (1) shall have registered to participate in the prize competition under any rules promulgated by the Director; (2) shall have complied with all the requirements under this section; (3) in the case of a private entity, shall be incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States, and in the case of an individual, whether participating singly or in a group, shall be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States; and (4) may not be a Federal entity or Federal employee acting within the scope of their employment. (c) Scope of forecast questions Questions under the prize competition established under subsection (a) may include— (1) model performance on relevant benchmarks, such as automation or augmentation benchmarks; (2) AI adoption indicators, such as share of firms deploying generative-AI tools; (3) occupation-level employment changes and AI-related mass-layoff reports; and (4) other metrics or topics the Director, in consultation with the Secretary of Labor, deems valuable and appropriate. (d) Competition cadence and structure The Director shall release questions under the prize competition established under subsection (a) and score resolved questions or submitted rationales not less frequently than every 6 months after the date of the creation of the competition. (e) Evaluation criteria The Director shall use evaluation criteria in the prize competition established under subsection (a) that include, either jointly or as part of separate prize categories— (1) forecasting accuracy using a proper scoring rule; and (2) informativeness or persuasiveness of rationales, models, or other justifications offered in response to questions. (f) Consultation In carrying out the prize competition established under subsection (a), the Director shall— (1) consult with the Secretary, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and at least 1 organization that has operated scored crowd elicitation forecasting platforms or contests; and (2) consider relevant input collected under section 101 about best practices for designing and operating scored crowd-sourced forecasting. (g) Reporting; data retention (1) Posting Each year of the prize competition established under subsection (a), the Director shall post a public summary of the results and discuss whether and how the results will inform Federal labor-market forecasts or policy. (2) Retention The Director shall retain program data from the prize competition established under subsection (a) for not less than 5 years after the date on which the program sunsets under subsection (i). (3) Consolidated report By not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director shall publish a consolidated report, which shall evaluate the prize competition effectiveness and recommend whether to continue or modify the prize competition program. (h) Authorization of appropriations There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section $6,000,000 over the period of fiscal years 2026 through 2030. (i) Sunset (1) In general Except as provided in paragraph (2), the prize competition authorized under this section shall cease to exist on the date that is 5 years after the date of enactment of this Act. (2) Distribution after sunset Any prize competition funds that are obligated before the date that is 5 years after the date of enactment of this Act shall be distributed after such date that is 5 years after such date of enactment.