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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. For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIMEs 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. Weve 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 Apples Steve Jobs later became the stuff of books and a movie. One of the cover images resembling the Lunch Atop a Skyscraper photograph from the 1930s shows eight tech leaders sitting on the beam: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the CEO of Googles DeepMind division Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, who launched her own startup World Labs last year. Another cover image shows scaffolding surrounding the giant letters AI made to look like computer componentry. Five of the eight people selected Musk, Zuckerberg, Huang, Altman and Su are already billionaires with a collective fortune of $870 billion, based on the latest estimates compiled by Forbes magazine. Much of the wealth has been accumulated during the past three years of AI fever. It made sense for Time to anoint AI because 2025 was the year that it shifted from a novel technology explored by early adopters to one where a critical mass of consumers see it as part of their mainstream lives, Thomas Husson, principal analyst at research firm Forrester, said by email. The magazine noted AI company CEOs’ attendance at President Donald Trump’s inauguration this year at the Capitol as a herald for the prominence of the sector. This was the year when artificial intelligences full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back or opting out, Jacobs wrote. Some experts expressed caution over the AI boom and the race to develop increasingly powerful systems. Leading AI companies are working feverishly to replace humans in every facet of life, and theyre not being shy about it, said Anthony Aguirre, executive director of the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, which works on AI safety issues. The impact on our society could be catastrophic if there are no guardrails protecting whats human, and most important to us. AI was a leading contender for the top slot, according to prediction markets, along with Huang and Altman. Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope whose election this year followed the death of Pope Francis, was also considered a contender, with Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani topping lists as well. After winning his second bid for the White House, Trump was named 2024’s person of the year by the magazine, succeeding Taylor Swift, who was the 2023 person of the year. The magazine was bought by Marc Benioff in 2018. Benioff, one of the co-founders of cloud-computing firm Salesforce, has called AI probably the most important technological wave of his lifetime. He has repeatedly said he doesn’t get involved in Time’s editorial decisions. The magazine’s selection dates from 1927, when its editors have picked the person they say most shaped headlines over the previous 12 months. Mike Catalini, Associated Press Associated Press writers Matt O’Brien, Kelvin Chan, and Michael Liedtke contributed to this article.
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This fall, President Trump took aim at the H-1B visa, in a move that has been telegraphed for years amid criticism that the program diverts jobs away from American workers. In September, Trump announced that new applications for the work visa would now be subject to a $100,000 feea bold attempt to curtail excessive use of the H-1B program. The H-1B program, which was established through the Immigration Act of 1990, has been widely embraced by tech employers to enable hiring skilled talent from abroad, with companies like Amazon and Meta sponsoring thousands of H-1B workers every year. While H-1B workers hail from dozens of countries, an outsized portion of themabout 80%are hired from India and China. But the program has also repeatedly come under fire due to claims that it outsources jobs and undercuts wages by paying foreign workers below market rate. Trumps proclamation has sparked confusion as employers have scrambled to figure out how the fee would reshape their hiring and recruitment plansand which workers would be subject to it. For the big tech companies that are among the most avid users of the H-1B visa, a $100,000 fee is not a huge price to pay. But lawyers say many companies that use the visa more sparingly are now unable to shoulder the steep cost of hiring H-1B workers. What we’re seeing is the $100,000 fee is not just impacting small employers who are like, we can’t pay that, says immigration lawyer Sandra Feist, who works with many people who are seeking an H-1B visa. No employer that I have spoken withand that includes very large organizations and large universitieshas said it’s worth it. This impact is being felt across all sizes of companies and institutions. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a major business lobbying group, has filed a lawsuit challenging the fee, deeming it unlawful and cost-prohibitive for employers seeking to hire H-1B workers. Feist says several companies she works with that typically enter the H-1B lottery on an annual basis are reevaluating their hiring strategy and planning to sit it out next year. In many cases, the muddled rollout of the fee and the lack of clarity on exceptions has created a chilling effect that is discouraging employers from sponsoring foreign workers altogether, even if they already have a visa. There are a lot of instances where this fee does apply and is prohibitive, but there are also many circumstances where this fee would not apply based on the current guidance that we’ve received, Feist says. But employers are so fearful of the uncertainty and volatility around immigration. How the fee is impacting employers The same logic has influenced how early and mid-stage startups are approaching hiring at the moment, according to Sophie Alcorn, an immigration lawyer who works with tech startups and founders. A significant portion of H-1B visas are held by people who came to the U.S. as students and simply changed their immigration status. But many founders are now hesitant to hire foreign nationals, even if they have already obtained a work visa or are currently authorized to work in the U.S. A lot of small businesses just don’t have the resources or information to understand that if those people are maintaining valid status in the U.S., then the $100,000 fee would not apply to them, Alcorn says, citing the example of speaking with a recent graduate who had three job offers revoked when their immigration status was disclosed. (This person was authorized to work without restriction for the year ahead.) H-1B workers can often play a significant role at small companies and startups, where they might be the sole person hired with their particular skillset, Alcorn says. Due to the visa fee, however, Alcorn has found that startups are steering clear of those workers and opting instead to hire people who have secured the O-1 visa. (That visa does not have to be tied to the employer, and is awarded to people who possess extraordinary ability in their field. It can offer more flexibility and job mobility than the H-1B, particularly in fields that rely on freelance or contract work.) But this can deny opportunities to workers who dont have the qualifications they might need to secure an O-1. A lot of the really brilliant, talented engineers are not famous and don’t have a public profile, she adds. Many of them are not PhD researchers. They’re often very scrappy individuals with a lot of work experience. The $100,000 fee is supposed to only apply to new applicationsbut existing H-1B workers are feeling the effects of it all the same. While H-1B workers can transfer their visa status if they find a new job, the restrictions of the visa can leave people in a precarious limbo if they get laid off. H-1B workers who lose their jobs are granted a 60-day grace period to find new employment and retain their visa status. In this job market, however, its no small feat for workers to land a new role within that timeframe. Sharadha Kodem, an immigration lawyer who represents many H-1B workers, says that with the $100,000 fee in place, employers may be forced to pay up if they want to hire an H-1B worker but are unable to do so within 60 days. If a worker has to leave the country in the interim, their new employer risks being saddled with the $100,000 fee when they return with a new visa, Kodem says. What this means for foreign workers For aspiring H-1B workersbe it students or refugees with temporary status protecting them from deportationthe fee has thrown a wrench in their future plans. The Trump administration has claimed that the $100,000 fee will not be levied on current H-1B workers or recent graduates who are seeking to change their status and switch to an H-1B visa. But their guidance also notes that the fee will be imposed if a worker is deemed ineligible for a change of status or extension. This vague language gives the administration broad discretion to determine who is eligible for a change of status, Feist saysand whether they will be slapped with a $100,000 bill. A recent Washington Post report found that foreign workers are already facing greater scrutinyand denialswhen they apply for work visas, including the H-1B. Its not just tech workers or H-1B visa aspirants from India and China who are impacted by stringent policies like this one. Im working with a costume designer from Ukraine, and our plan was to file in the lottery this spring, Feist says. I’ll have to revisit that in light of the $100,000 fee. Feist is working with several people from Ukraine who have temporary protected status, for whom securing an H-1B would have been their best chance at staing in the U.S. If the administration has the final say on whether the fee should be waived, they could arbitrarily foist it on applicants from certain countries, Feist says. The general hope is that, as the administration sees what a chilling effect this has on employers who are seeking essential workers that they can’t find in the U.S. workforce, that they will slowly narrow the scope of the fee and perhaps provide more clear guidance, she adds. Our hope is that the administration sees the light. Why this does not address H-1B abuses The Trump administration has framed this fee as a ploy to discourage companies from abusing the H-1B program or using it to source cheaper labor. In practice, however, the fee seems to be making it more difficult for companies to use the program the way it was originally conceived: to recruit highly skilled talent that they cant find stateside. Meanwhile, for the leading tech companies that routinely file thousands of H-1B petitions to sponsor workers from abroad, $100,000 amounts to the equivalent of a paltry rounding errorand hardly qualifies as an obstacle. Those companies will likely face less competition for H-1B approvals, as the fee deters many employers from applying at all. This is benefiting the exact employers that [the administration says] they are targeting, Feist says. It is only very large companies that over rely upon H-1B and sponsor tens of thousands of them each year that will benefit from this. And normal employers who are hiring an ophthalmologist or a teacher or a therapist or an architectthey will be disadvantaged. The debate over the H-1B program dates back decades, with people on both sides of the aisle calling for reform long before President Trump assumed office. One of the key critiques of the program has been that deep-pocketed companies can effectively game the lottery by flooding it with applicationsand that certain companies use the H-1B visa to undercut wages. The H-1B program has wage requirements but offers four different wage levels, and some research indicates that many workers are being paid at the lowest wage levels, which are supposed to be reserved for entry-level jobs. (Other research has found that employers are by and large paying market rate.) The backlog of green card applications also leaves many H-1B workers without a legitimate path to citizenship, forcing them to spend decades in the U.S. on a visa that is tied to their employment. Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, says that employers who pay lower wages to H-1B workerswhich typically includes outsourcing and staffing firms like Infosys, Cognizant, and Tatastill benefit from the program, even if they are now saddled with the $100,000 fee. They’re multi-billion dollar companies, and they get a lot of wage savings from using the program, he says. So [the fee] is not very well-targeted, and it could have unintended effects. And it just doesnt get at the heart of what’s wrong with the H-1B program. What could actually reform the H-1B program The new fee fails to reform the H-1B program in a meaningful way, and it seems even Trump is of two minds about the role of this visa. Even as Trump has cracked down on legal immigration, he has touted the value of H-1B. In a Fox News interview last monthnot long after he introduced the $100,000 feeTrump said the U.S. workforce lacked certain talents and needed the H-1B visa to bring over highly skilled workers. “You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, Im going to put you into a factory and were going to make missiles, he added. There are changes to the H-1B program that could move the needle, though its not clear whether those efforts will actually target the companies that lean heavily on the H-1B visa. The Trump administration is putting forth proposals that would likely amend the lottery system and prioritize applications for H-1B petitions that are at a higher wage levelin other words, give more weight to jobs that pay better. In theory, this could help prevent tech companies and outsourcing firms from exploiting the lottery system, while also ensuring H-1B workers are paid fairly. But some lawyers argue that it would simply reinforce the advantage held by tech firms, who can afford to pay higher wages, and make it more difficult for other applicants to land an H-1B visa if overall wages are depressed in their sector. The Labor Department has also stepped up enforcement of the H-1B program through an initiative called Project Firewall, which is intended to investigate potential abuses of the H-1B visa, including but not limited to wage theft. Still, as Costa points out, the threat of enforcement may not be a deterrent for billion-dollar employers that have come to rely on the H-1B visa. Companies get disbarred from the program very, very rarely, he says. If the penalty is mostly just recovering back wages, then you’re just paying what you owed that worker anyway.
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Walt Disney and OpenAI make for very odd bedfellows: The former is one of the most-recognized brands among children under the age of 18. The near-$200 billion companys value has been derived from more than a century of aggressive safeguarding of its intellectual property and keeping the magic alive among innocent children. OpenAI, which celebrated its first decade of existence this week, is best known for upending creativity, the economy, and society with its flagship product, ChatGPT. And in the last two months, it has said it wants to get to a place where its adult users can use its tech to create erotica. So what the hell should we make of a just-announced deal between the two that will allow ChatGPT and Sora users to create images and videos of more than 200 characters, from Mickey and Minnie Mouse to the Mandalorian, starting from early 2026? Terms of the deal As part of the three-year agreement, OpenAI has committed to continuing to implement robust trust and safety measures, as well as controls to stop illegal or harmful content. Disney hopes that means you cant make lewd footage of Belle and the Beastbut given the precarity of AI-model guardrails, and the ease with which they can be jailbroken, theres no guarantee. Thats what makes the deal so puzzling for Disney, an externally benign behemoth that has long acted like an attack dog in defending unauthorized use of its intellectual property. Some Disney fans and content creators will undoubtedly celebrate the news and the opportunity to play in the Companys sandbox in a more official way, says Rebecca Williams, a researcher who studies Disney and its business at the University of South Wales. But there are clear questions over copyright here. Among them is how much influence Disneyinfamously controlling over how its characters are depictedwill have over the 800 million ChatGPT users creations. Although the deal reportedly will result in the creation of a joint steering committee to dictate the use of IP, this is a company that has previously sued providers of costumed characters for child birthday parties for unauthorized use of its IP. And as it brokered its deal with OpenAI, lawyers for Disney sent a letter to Google alleging copyright infringement on a massive scale. (Google did not immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment on the claims.) Disney is famously an IP defender and very aggressive, says Carissa Véliz, an AI ethicist at the University of Oxford, and OpenAI just throws it out the window. Character control Theres also a big shift in how Disney is ceding control of how its characters are depictednot least given Sam Altmans statement this fall that he wants to give verified adult users of OpenAI tools the ability to engage in erotic interactions, and, more generally, to loosen restrictions on OpenAIs tools. Disneys statement frames this very much as giving fans control, offering them more creativity, and greater opportunities to connect with Disney characters and stories, says Williams. It remains to be seen whether this is what fans actually want The deal also requires a shift for OpenAI, too. Presumably, that approach to slackening controls for users across OpenAI apps and services to be more permissive in what they can say, do, and create using the firms technology will have to be tightened more when talking about Disney properties. Alongside letting Disney fans create their own AI versions of favorite characters, the House of Mouse is also leaping headlong into the AI space: As part of the agreement, Disney is investing $1 billion in equity into OpenAI and will reportedly become a major customer of the company. A new frontier for copyright The deal also alters both firms approach to copyright. All the talk between Bob Iger and Sam Altman about redefining the future of storytelling is bluster, reckons Adam Eisgrau, senior director for AI, creativity and copyright policy at the Chamber of Progress, a tech trade group. The biggest story today is what they apparently also have agreed between the lines, he says. That includes the idea that theres no future in content companies fighting fair use to sue generative AI developers for direct copyright infringement over training inputs, and that generative AI developers want to cut more deals to preclude secondary liability legal fights over their outputs. But more than anything else, the deal potentially changes the idea of what made Disney Disney, reckons Véliz. How is it going to affect creativity in the long run? she asks. The raison detre for IP is to incentivize creativity, and when we undermine it, we give talent fewer reasons to focus on being creative, she explains. Its very ironic that a company like Disney, known for valuing talent, for valuing creativity, for valuing craftsmanship, is making a deal with a company that arguably represents the opposite of that.
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