The 100 Most Influential People in AI
Big Tech strikes back
Earlier this week, TIME published its second annual list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence. I worked on the list, which meant I got to spend my summer having lots of deep, interesting conversations with some of the most fascinating people in the field.
One big theme we wanted to recognize this year was the lingering power of the biggest tech companies in the world. If you only skimmed AI news last year, you might have left with the impression that plucky startups had stolen a march on the giants. That would be a mistake. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Nvidia remain the dominant players as of 2024, thanks to their deep pockets and their control over the computing infrastructure that AI depends on.
So, for the leading item on the list, I interviewed Google CEO Sundar Pichai with my boss Sam Jacobs. Google is currently pushing generative AI into Search, which could upend the business model that publishers and creators rely upon to support their (often meaningful and socially beneficial) work. We asked Pichai some probing questions about how Google is navigating that tension and more. You can read the full interview here.
I had the privilege of writing many other profiles for the list, including democratic AI theorists Divya Siddarth and Saffron Huang; UK AI Safety Institute bigwigs Jade Leung and Geoffrey Irving; OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his onetime nemesis Helen Toner; Perplexity CEO and bogeyman to many journalists Aravind Srinivas; worker organizers and former content moderators Kauna Malgwi and Mophat Okinyi; moral philosophers Amanda Askell and Iason Gabriel; and stock market heroes Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg. My talented colleagues also wrote tons of great stories for the list about AI’s colossal energy and water usage; the negative impacts of deepfakes on women and girls; and the rising antitrust movement that could disrupt the concentration of power in the AI industry. I highly recommend spending time with the full list here.
I’m now taking a much-needed sabbatical until November, so this email will be the last you hear from me for quite a while. But I’ve already got some cool projects cooking for when I get back, so stay tuned!