Time magazine names 'Architects of AI' as its person of the year for 2025

The “Architects of AI” were named Time's person of the year Thursday, with the magazine citing 2025 as when the potential of artificial intelligence “roared into view” with no turning back.

- By MIKE CATALINI Associated Press

“For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of Al are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year,” Time said in a social media post.

The magazine was deliberate in selecting people — the “individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI” — rather than the technology itself, though there would have been some precedent for that.

“We've named not just individuals but also groups, more women than our founders could have imagined (though still not enough), and, on rare occasions, a concept: the endangered Earth, in 1988, or the personal computer, in 1982,” wrote Sam Jacobs, the editor-in-chief, in an explanation of the choice.

“The drama surrounding the selection of the PC over Apple’s Steve Jobs later became the stuff of books and a movie.”