The Story Behind TIME’s ‘The People vs. AI’ Cover

As we made our decision to name the Architects of AI the 2025 Person of the Year, we could not help but notice one particular tension: the enthusiasm gap­—particularly in the U.S. While the country has become the world leader in many aspects of building AI, it is also one of the most downbeat places about the technology’s potential to improve lives. Surveys consistently show Americans are pessimistic about AI, as Andrew R. Chow writes in TIME’s new cover story.

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That sense of fear isn’t located in one party, place, or group. Chow found in his reporting that the anxiety over AI’s development unites people who might struggle to find common ground on pretty much anything else. He set out to listen to the voices that make up that force. They include the parents of a child who died by suicide after developing a relationship with a chatbot, and a Texas pastor who fears that this technology is disconnecting families. “It’s not good for man to be alone,” says Michael Grayston, a pastor at LifeFamily church in Austin. They include filmmakers, nurses, and a popular contributor to Steve Bannon’s podcast, all of whom worry about what is lost when immersive new technologies are introduced into human labor.

Read TIME’s new cover story on the people pushing back against AI

The growth of data centers, which power AI’s expansion, is of particular concern. There are 4,000 in the U.S. and nearly 3,000 more on the way, according to one count. Fears that this development will harm quality of life and fail to deliver economic benefits have already begun to shape election results in Georgia, Virginia, and elsewhere.

In this anniversary year of America’s founding, it is hard not to hear echoes of our history and wonder whether we are on the cusp of a new political movement. As political scientist Rebecca Lissner warned in a recent article for TIME, “If 2026 proves to be the year of AI takeoff, the concerns of numerous Americans about its effects on our economy, politics, and human relationships could coalesce into a potent populist political force.”