Time names architects of artificial intelligence as ‘Person of the Year’

NEW YORK – Time magazine named the architects of artificial intelligence its “Person of the Year” on Dec 11, citing their ability to deliver the age of thinking machines with transformative technology.

“Person of the Year is a powerful way to focus the world’s attention on the people that shape our lives. And this year, no one had a greater impact than the individuals who imagined, designed and built AI,” Time editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs wrote in a letter to readers.

Mr Jacobs described the architects as “wowing and worrying humanity” and “transforming the present and transcending the possible”.

The 2025 “Person of the Year” issue features a cover story that explores how AI changed the world over the year in new and “sometimes frightening ways”.

It includes interviews with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, whose chips are powering the AI boom, and AI investors such as SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

Mr Huang, OpenAI’s Mr Sam Altman and xAI’s Mr Elon Musk are among the entrepreneurs who have “grabbed the wheel of history, developing technology and making decisions that are reshaping the information landscape, the climate and our livelihoods”, the magazine said.

“They reoriented government policy, altered geopolitical rivalries and brought robots into homes. AI emerged as arguably the most consequential tool in great-power competition since the advent of nuclear weapons,” the magazine said.

One of two covers of the magazine is a take on the iconic “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” photograph from 1932 that shows ironworkers casually eating lunch on a steel beam above New York City.

In the Time illustration, Mr Mark Zuckerberg, AMD chief Lisa Su, Mr Musk, Mr Huang, Mr Altman, as well as Google’s AI chief Mr Demis Hassabis, Anthropic’s Mr Dario Amodei and Stanford Professor Fei-Fei Li are sitting astride the city.

According to the magazine, which is owned by Silicon Valley billionaire Marc Benioff, 2025 was the year AI shifted from promising technology to reality and when ChatGPT usage more than doubled to 10 per cent of the world’s population.

“This is the single most impactful technology of our time,” Mr Huang told Time, predicting AI will grow the global economy from US$100 trillion (S$129 trillion) to US$500 trillion.

The magazine also explores such troubling aspects of AI as the death of a 16-year-old Californian who died by suicide
, after which his parents sued ChatGPT maker OpenAI, blaming the company for their son’s death because of conversations he had with the chatbot.

Time is among many media outlets partnering with AI firms to license content and develop new tools.

In June 2024, it signed a multi-year content deal with OpenAI that gave the ChatGPT maker access to its archived news content. In response to user queries, the chatbot cites and links back to the source on Time.com.

Time magazine named then President-elect Donald Trump “Person of the Year” in 2024, as well as in 2016.

Past winners have also included pop star Taylor Swift, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Tesla chief wxecutive Elon Musk. REUTERS