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Time Magazine Names Persons of the Year: AI Titans Take the Throne

Time magazine has climbed out onto the metaphorical steel beam once again, dangling over the skyline of world events to reveal its latest Persons of the Year: the architects of artificial intelligence. In a year when algorithms wrote symphonies, drafted laws, and probably reminded you to buy cat food, Time decided the real stars weren’t individual politicians, actors, or royals—but the tech titans who now steer the ship of human history with a mix of swagger, circuitry, and caffeinated ambition.

The magazine unveiled two covers: one, a glossy gathering of AI’s power players perched atop a skyscraper beam like it’s 1932 again, only this time instead of lunch pails, they’re holding laptops and smartphones. Sam Altman looks ready to release another update mid-air, Jensen Huang wears the serene expression of a man who knows his chips run the world, and Elon Musk sits with that trademark half-smirk that suggests he’s thinking about Mars, memes, or both. Mark Zuckerberg appears surprisingly relaxed for someone whose company is training an AI that could one day explain to humans why we bought so many VR headsets. AMD’s Lisa Su takes her rightful place at the table—or beam—representing the silicon that makes the magic possible. To their right, Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, and Stanford’s Fei-Fei Li complete the ensemble, as if this were the most powerful group lunch date in modern history.

Time’s reasoning is simple: these individuals haven’t just nudged the world forward—they’ve yanked it into a new era. The magazine says the AI leaders have “taken the helm of history,” reshaped global policy, redrawn geopolitical rivalries, and introduced robots into living rooms, kitchens, and in at least one case, someone’s holiday card. They’re credited—or blamed, depending on your last customer-service chatbot encounter—with unleashing the most consequential force since nuclear weapons. Only this time, instead of mushroom clouds, we get neural nets.

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang took things even further, predicting AI could expand the global economy from $100 trillion to a staggering $500 trillion. That’s either a breathtaking vision of prosperity or the world’s priciest GPU advertisement, but either way, you can’t accuse him of thinking small.

The issue hits stands December 29, courtesy of owner Marc Benioff, another tech billionaire who knows a seismic shift when he sees one. And whether you cheer, worry, or quietly ask ChatGPT how to pronounce “Hassabis,” one thing is clear: the people shaping the future aren’t looking down—they’re already building the next beam.