World Solve

People often continue traditions or habits even when better alternatives clearly exist, and it's unclear whether familiarity alone provides any genuine moral justification for this preference. This unresolved question touches on the nature of rational choice itself.

Tropical forests host a huge share of the world's biodiversity, and converting this land for farming, even when done for legitimate food needs, often results in permanent species loss. Balancing food production with biodiversity protection remains unresolved.

Arctic wetlands store significant amounts of carbon that can be released as methane when they thaw, potentially creating a feedback loop that accelerates warming further. Preventing or slowing this release remains beyond current technological capability.

Managed honeybees, while important for agriculture, can sometimes outcompete native pollinator species for food resources when placed in sensitive natural areas. Balancing agricultural pollination needs with native species protection remains an unresolved ecological challenge.

Sophisticated fake prescriptions generated with AI assistance can be difficult for pharmacies to distinguish from legitimate ones without additional verification steps. Closing this gap remains an urgent unresolved challenge for pharmaceutical safety.

Computer memory still requires a tradeoff between speed, which loses data when powered off, and permanent storage, which is comparatively slower. A technology that fully combines both properties remains a long-sought but unresolved goal in computer engineering.

Many touchscreens still struggle with accuracy when used in cold conditions or with standard gloves, limiting usability in colder climates. A universally reliable solution remains an unresolved hardware design challenge.

A surprising number of published scientific results can't be reproduced when other researchers try the same experiment, undermining trust in published findings. Fixing this reproducibility gap is essential to keeping science reliable.

Free expression is valued almost everywhere, but so is protection from harassment, incitement, and harmful misinformation, and these values often conflict directly. No universal line exists for where one right ends and the other begins.

When an autonomous system makes a harmful choice, moral responsibility is hard to pin on any single party, the programmer, the company, or the AI itself. Ethics hasn't caught up with the reality of decisions made without direct human involvement.

When automation replaces jobs, the resulting profits mostly go to business owners and shareholders, not the workers who lost their income. A fairer system for sharing these gains remains an unsolved economic and political question.

International courts and diplomacy exist, but nations still frequently settle disputes through force when other methods fail or are ignored. A stronger, more trusted system for resolving conflicts peacefully remains unbuilt.

Conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis occur when the body attacks itself, and current treatments mostly suppress symptoms rather than fix the root cause. Millions live with lifelong management instead of a real cure.

When an AI makes a harmful decision, it's often unclear whether the blame falls on the developer, the user, or the company deploying it. Without clear rules, victims of AI mistakes often have no clear path to accountability.

We know roughly when life began, but not the exact chemical steps that turned non-living matter into something that could reproduce. Solving this would also tell us where else in the universe life might arise.

Develop offline-capable, multilingual, trusted systems for issuing alerts, gathering local conditions, and coordinating response when normal communications fail. The challenge is especially acute in informal settlements, where existing solutions often assume stable institutions, high incomes, continuous connectivity, or centralized service delivery.

Assess when and how neglected rail lines can be rehabilitated for low-carbon freight, regional development, and resilient transport.

Develop audit methods, legal standards, and consumer remedies when data-driven pricing disadvantages people due to proxies for race, disability, gender, or poverty.

Ensure older adults, disabled people, rural residents, and undocumented groups can access benefits when governments shift from cash to digital channels.

Build standards for need assessment, model evaluation, contracts, oversight, appeals, and vendor accountability when governments procure automated systems.