On December 11, Eastern Time, Time magazine announced its Person of the Year for 2025 — a group of industry leaders and scientists who are building, designing, and driving the era of artificial intelligence. The magazine stated that 2025 is the year when the potential of artificial intelligence will fully explode, and AI is profoundly reshaping key areas such as the economy and education. Its development is both exciting and accompanied by risks and uncertainties.
This issue of Time features two cover versions to present this theme. The first version is a large "AI" letter symbolizing the formation of the AI era; the second version pays tribute to the classic image "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" from 1932, presenting eight representatives in the AI field in a group photo: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta; Lisa Su, CEO of AMD; Elon Musk, founder of xAI; Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA; Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI; Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind; and Fei-Fei Li, a renowned scientist at Stanford University.
Time's editor-in-chief Jacobs said in an interview that as global industries rapidly deploy AI, society is undergoing significant structural changes. He compared this period to the "Gilded Age" described by Mark Twain — an era of rapid technological development where wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few. He pointed out that the direction of artificial intelligence is also being deeply influenced by a small number of key individuals.
This issue of the magazine also explores various AI-related topics, including the tense relationship between technology companies driving AI and ordinary workers worried about being replaced, reflecting the complex social issues behind technological progress.
In foreign media comments, CNN noted that Time's topic seems to be responding to the current "AI bubble" theory. Recently, several institutions have continued to predict a downturn in the AI industry. Michael Burry, known as the "big short," was reported to have heavily bet against NVIDIA and called it the core of the "artificial intelligence funding loop fraud."
Since 1927, Time has annually selected its Person of the Year. In the past, the selection was mostly political leaders or cultural celebrities, but in recent years, it has increasingly included innovative technologies and their promoters. From "The Computer" in 1982, to "You" in 2006, and then to Elon Musk in 2021, technological power has repeatedly shaped the perspective of the Person of the Year. Last year's winner was former US President Trump.
