They Surprised and Worried Humanity AI Architects Are the Person of the Year
- FutureScape
- Feb 19
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 2
Guest Author: Elia Impaloni
"For having led to the age of thinking machines, for having surprised and worried humanity, for having transformed the present and transcended the possible."
It is with these reasons that, as per tradition, on December 11th, the US magazine "Time" revealed who it has chosen as "person of the year" for 2025.
After the newly re-elected President of the United States, Donald Trump, was chosen (for the second time) in 2024, and singer Taylor Swift took the title in 2023, this year, the cover of "Time" depicts the "architects of AI" as the group of people who most influenced the events of the past year.
The cover features the famous photograph "Lunch atop a skyscraper," taken in 1932 by Charles Clyde Ebbets. Sitting on the beam of the construction site, however, there are no workers, nor programmers or computer engineers. The "AI architects" are, among others, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Facebook founder and Meta chairman Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, AMD CEO Lisa Su, and Nvidia founder Jensen Huang.
The Year of AI
One can argue about the opportunity to represent as AI "architects" people whose role has certainly been to fund research, projects, and entire programming studies so they can build those Large Language Models (LLMs) and update them continuously. Or that they thought of adding functions that used artificial intelligence to improve the user experience to the products they already owned. That is the case of at least two of Meta's most important products, Instagram and WhatsApp, which have seen the addition of chatbots with which users can interact, but also of Google, which has replaced the first result of each search with a more or less short answer "thought" by its Gemini.
Or, again, it is useful to consider that ChatGPT is the LLM that has grown the most in the last year, reaching 10% of the world's population that uses it. ChatGPT has evolved from a simple "back-and-forth" tool that started with the user's request alone, to something that can now think in natural language, search the internet for more data, formulate a plan, and present it to the user as a complete, done job.
A risky comparison?
In 1932, workers eating their lunch on the beam of a skyscraper under construction were depicted in one of the images universally recognized as most representative of the working class of the period just after the Great Depression, following the tragic Wall Street crash of 1929.
Not only that, the people depicted in "Time" certainly have the merit of having brought LLMs to humanity, but you could also say that the role of the "architects" was contracted out by them to scientists, researchers from the most diverse fields of study and programmers who imagined, conceived, studied, built those models and after a thousand tests and attempts made public, and then continue to work on them and make them more and more perfect.
They worried the world.
Artificial intelligence, however, has also given humanity reasons to fear it this year. It may be that the main source of alarm concerns disinformation. In 2025, AIs have become increasingly capable of generating extremely realistic text, images, videos, and even voices identical to those of real people. Deepfakes have therefore become increasingly difficult to recognize, questioning even what seemed plausible or what somebody presented as true.
Not only that, many of the images generated with artificial intelligence represent a major blow to copyright. If what a generative AI does is create something by taking inspiration from what it finds among the data it has available, it is not difficult to understand how many figurative artists could have found some of the images used in commercials or as cards on social networks, similar in style or ideas to something they had created, without being asked for any permission.
Another big fear is regulation. The pace of artificial intelligence innovation has exceeded that of the laws designed to regulate it. The way in which artificial intelligence impacts the world, therefore, is left in the hands of those "architects" depicted on the cover of "Time", who will certainly follow their own economic interests, and it is not certain that they will look for ways to reconcile these interests with the common good.
On a social level, many people have relied on artificial intelligence to ask them for medical advice or even just company, exposing themselves to the risk in the first case of obtaining partial or flawed information from the memory that the specific chatbot has stored conversations with the user, in the second of forging a parasocial, one-way and in fact fictitious relationship, with a very complex algorithm that is not another human being.
They amazed the world.
In 2025, artificial intelligence has truly amazed the world, accelerating its development and becoming a tool that has really changed the world, even for the better. Artificial intelligence has become a support for many daily activities for a myriad of different types of work: from the on-the-fly translation of something, even in multiple languages, to the immediate but organized search for data and information, from the drafting of more and less complex texts to the speeding up of repeated and mechanical processes, such as sending emails following a pattern.
Thus, scientific research has made great strides, automating calculations and allowing, for example, the formulation and testing of new scientific hypotheses very quickly or the acceleration of the development of new drugs. The world of work, although it has been greatly affected by the acceleration of AI, has the opportunity to reread and reinvent itself, thinking about working alongside LLMs and freeing workers from repetitive tasks, while still requiring them to check the results of chatbots' work in any case.
A debate that has made the world aware, a future to be inhabited
With the amazement that the speed of growth of artificial intelligence has brought, in any case, it has forced the world to ask itself if it made sense to try to have a more aware population, trying to build a debate not confined solely to experts, but discussed in the media, in schools, universities, and in politics. This fact was also something surprising, more than it can be, worrying.
The real challenge, perhaps, is to keep this debate alive, starting with the understanding that we really need to celebrate all the people who have brought artificial intelligence to the extraordinary level of development it has reached in 2025. It will also be necessary to soften fanaticism towards artificial intelligence. It will be necessary to do so on both sides: we cannot consider "stopping" AIs, because it is a process that has already started and in which it is impossible to back down, but neither can we entrust them with our future and our lives. A "digital constitution", such as the one they try to achieve at a certain point in Lyria's adventure, could be a way of drawing the relationships between the artificial and human worlds.
Given the complexity of the topics covered, and given that the whole novel aims to learn how to make the best use of AI, you will get more pieces on this space that will touch on all the topics that I have only mentioned here.
And, who knows, maybe a cover of "Time" that elects an artificial intelligence as "person of the year" might not be so far away. And it will have to be an artificial intelligence that has become human, because human beings have decided to live with it in their future.
Article: Guest Author Elia Impaloni
Translation: Astrea Nicodemo
Images & Video: Eretikos Art
People also ask
Why were AI architects named Person of the Year 2025?
AI architects were recognized because artificial intelligence moved from experimental technology to global infrastructure in 2025. Their leadership accelerated the development and adoption of large language models that reshaped communication, research, and daily life.
How is artificial intelligence changing society in 2026?
In 2026, AI continues to transform scientific research, creative production, education, and the workplace. Its impact is no longer theoretical; it actively reshapes how information is created, verified, and distributed across society.
What are the risks of AI deepfakes and misinformation?
AI-generated deepfakes blur the line between authentic and fabricated content. As images, videos, and voices become indistinguishable from reality, trust in media and public discourse faces unprecedented pressure.
Should AI be globally regulated?
Because AI systems operate across borders, many experts argue that national regulation alone is insufficient. A coordinated global framework may be necessary to balance innovation, accountability, and public safety.
What is a digital constitution for AI?
A digital constitution for AI is a proposed ethical and regulatory framework defining rights, responsibilities, and limits in the relationship between humans and intelligent systems.
How do we live with artificial intelligence?
Living with AI means integrating intelligent systems into society responsibly, preserving human agency, creativity, and ethical oversight while benefiting from technological progress.
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