Time Magazine revealed its Person of the Year for 2025. It wasn’t one person, but many different people who are all at the helm of pushing AI technology. This has caused some prediction market gamblers who had bet on AI itself earning the distinction to start yelling a lot online. It’s very funny, but also a horrible glimpse at our bet-on-everything future.
On December 11, Time Magazine revealed its annual Person of the Year cover. The long-running magazine, whose readership at this point is made up mostly of bored people in waiting rooms, revealed that there wasn’t just one person of the year in 2025, but seven different individuals. Time Magazine refers to these people as the “Architects of AI,” and they include names like Elon Musk, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and OpenAI boss Sam Altman. Normally, I’d think about who Time picked as the Person of the Year for about 10 seconds and then move on with my life. But this time, who they picked, and the use of two different covers, have caused chaos among people who love to bet on everything.
2025 was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back.
For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the… pic.twitter.com/mEIKRiZfLo
— TIME (@TIME) December 11, 2025
On the prediction market website Kalshi, nearly $20 million worth of betting happened over who would be Time‘s Person of the Year. One popular option that many bet on was AI. So when Kalshi called the bet and listed the specific people the magazine had named as the “Architects of AI” as the winners, but not AI itself, a lot of people were angry. They believed that AI was also the winner as it was named directly. Making things more confusing, Time Magazine ran two covers for the Person of the Year issue this year, one featuring the architects, with the other featuring “AI” in massive letters, though the words “The Architects of AI” are still present in the cover’s corner. Still, this cover is more evidence, according to those who bet on AI, that it, too, should be considered a winning outcome in one of the site’s biggest bets of the year.
“ITS THE ARCHITECTS OF AI THISNIS LITTERALY THE BET FUCK KALSHI,” posted one angry gambler who bet on AI and lost. “This is actually so freaking stupid,” said another user.
“This pretty clearly should’ve resolved to yes,” said another upset AI better. “If you bought AI, reach out to Kalshi support because ‘AI’ is literally on the cover and in the title, ‘Architects of AI.’ They’re not going to change anything unless they hear from people.”
“The cover literally says ‘AI” right on the front. This is insane,” said another upset gambler. “fr bro we got screwed,” replied someone else.
While I am definitely laughing at how many people lost money betting on Time‘s Person of the Year, I’m also aware that this is our future. This bet-on-everything shit is growing quickly. Sites like Kalshi and Polymarket are letting people gamble on literally anything. And this is just the start. The CEO of Kalshi recently explained that he wants to “financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference of opinion.” In other words, every part of our humanity—what we love, believe in, cherish, hope for, fear, etc.—in the near future will be something to bet on. That’s only going to make it easier for the growing number of young people addicted to online gambling to lose even more money. And the arbiters of how these bets are settled and who wins will be tech bros.
Good luck, everyone. I place our odds of making it through the AI-powered online gambling future ahead of us pretty low. I’m not taking that bet.
