Although it leaked online before the announcement, Time magazine made its 2025 Person of the Year official on Thursday morning: It’s the “architects of AI.”
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Time magazine’s official cover(s) for the 2025 Person of the Year edition include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla and xAI CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and the “godmother of AI” Fei-Fei Li.
However, Time’s accolade arrives as Generative AI faces increasing blowback over concerns about privacy and inaccuracies, its environmental impact, mass production of slop, and copyright issues. Still, more companies have started using AI for creative works, such as commercials. Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are just two examples of big brands that published AI-generated holiday commercials – only to retract the ads after receiving criticism from consumers.
Those anti-AI feelings appear to be spilling over into Time’s 2025 Person of the Year announcement as well.
On X, users commented about AI training off of intellectual property it may not have consent to use.
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Others knocked how Time was celebrating the CEOs of tech companies rather than the “engineers and researchers who actually build AI.”
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Some X users focused on Time’s choice of a cover for the Person of the Year issue, which recreates the infamous “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” photo from 1932, replacing the iron workers sitting on a steel beam with tech CEOs.
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On Reddit, some of the top comments on the highest upvoted posts were very critical of Time’s choice.
“Oh god Please burst the AI bubble ASAP.”
“how very disappointing”
“The editors were so proud of this choice… ..until they all lost their jobs to the ‘Person of the Year’.”
And, of course, there were a few wise guys who cracked jokes about how “AI” written out looks like we’re talking about a guy named “Al.”
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It’s important to note that Time’s 2025 Person of the Year article does touch upon many of the negative aspects about AI.
The magazine’s Person of the Year designation is not meant to be a moral judgement on the person chosen, but instead a recognition of their impact on the world, whether it’s good, bad, or a mix of both. Over Time’s history, the publication has given Person of the Year to some truly terrible individuals along with some who have devoted themselves to helping others.
Still, many online seem to believe that AI and its big tech cheerleaders don’t deserve the recognition.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
