Month: December 2025

TIME mgazine on Thursday named the ‘Architects of Artificial Intelligence” as the 2025 Person of the Year, with the magazine citing 2025 as when the potential of artificial intelligence “roared into view” with no turning back.

Time is highlighting the people whose work propelled artificial intelligence from a cutting-edge experiment into a defining force of modern life. The decision marks a moment the magazine describes as the year when AI’s potential “roared into view” and firmly embedded itself in everyday society.

The publication emphasized that the recognition is directed at the innovators behind the technology rather than the systems they built. The group includes the “individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI,” a choice that editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs said reflects the scale of their impact on global culture, politics, and industry. “This was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back or opting out,” Jacobs wrote, calling AI “the most consequential tool in great-power competition since the advent of nuclear weapons.”

The Person of the Year issue features two separate covers: one showing workers assembling the towering letters “AI,” and another paying homage to the 1932 “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” photograph, with tech leaders perched on a steel beam above a city skyline. The artwork includes figures such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei and Fei-Fei Li. A second cover story explores the perspectives of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Baidu CEO Robin Li.

Analysts noted that 2025 marked a turning point: AI moved from an early-adopter technology to one embraced by a broad consumer base. According to research firm Forrester, a “critical mass of consumers” now sees AI as part of routine life. Prediction markets had also listed AI, along with prominent tech CEOs, Pope Leo XIV, President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, as leading contenders for the title.

Time’s long-running Person of the Year tradition dates back to 1927. The honor has sometimes gone to groups or concepts—not only individuals—such as “the endangered earth” in 1988, the personal computer in 1982, and “You” in 2006. In 2024, the magazine chose President Donald Trump after his return to the White House, following Taylor Swift’s selection in 2023.

Alongside its main announcement, Time also revealed several other annual honors: YouTube’s Neal Mohan was named CEO of the Year, Leonardo DiCaprio received Entertainer of the Year, A’ja Wilson was named Athlete of the Year, and KPop Demon Hunters earned Breakthrough of the Year.

The 2025 Person of the Year issue goes on sale Dec. 19.

Editorial credit: oasisamuel / Shutterstock.com

A federal judge has ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported earlier this year and has since been held in immigration detention, finding that the Trump administration has held him for months without the legal authority required to continue his detention or remove him from the United States.

The ruling, issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland, granted Abrego Garcia’s habeas petition, concluding that federal authorities lacked the legal basis to continue holding him.  In her decision, Xinis determined that the government had no valid final order of removal allowing Abrego Garcia’s deportation, despite repeated attempts by the Trump administration to expel him: “Because respondents have no statutory authority to remove Abrego Garcia to a third country absent a removal order, his removal cannot be considered reasonably foreseeable, imminent, or consistent with due process,” Xinis wrote, adding, “Although respondents may eventually get it right, they have not as of today. Thus, Abrego Garcia’s detention for the stated purpose of third country removal cannot continue. Respondents’ conduct over the past months belie that his detention has been for the basic purpose of effectuating removal, lending further support that Abrego Garcia should be held no longer.”

The judge directed federal officials to release Abrego “immediately,” notify him in advance of the precise time and location of that release, and update the court by 5 p.m. Eastern. She also noted that the government’s conduct “belie[s] that his detention has been for the basic purpose of effectuating removal.” DHS spokespersons sharply attacked the decision after Thursday’s ruling, calling it “naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge” and asserting that the order “lacks any valid legal basis.”

Abrego, a Salvadoran national, first entered the U.S. in 2012 and has long maintained that he fled “gang violence targeting his family.” Although an immigration judge granted him “withholding of removal” in 2019—barring his return to El Salvador due to credible threats—he was nevertheless deported in March to the CECOT megaprison after officials later claimed he was linked to MS-13, an accusation he denies and has never been convicted of. Government lawyers later conceded the deportation was an “administrative error,” prompting the Supreme Court in April to require his return.

Following months of resistance, the administration brought Abrego back in June, immediately charging him with human smuggling based on a 2022 traffic stop. He has pleaded not guilty. After briefly living with family in Maryland under pretrial conditions, he was taken into ICE custody again—despite the absence of a removal order—and held for third-country deportation.

Throughout the case, the administration has explored sending him to a series of countries with which he has no ties, including Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia. Xinis criticized those efforts, noting that officials ignored Costa Rica, which publicly confirmed it would accept Abrego as a refugee. “Respondents’ calculated effort to take Costa Rica ‘off the table’ backfired,” she wrote, citing repeated notifications to him of expulsion to African nations “that never agreed to take him.” The administration has continued to insist that Abrego is a gang member, though judges have questioned the evidence. Senior officials, including President Donald Trump and top homeland security leaders, have vowed that Abrego would “never walk America’s streets again.”

Xinis summarized the situation bluntly: “The history of Abrego Garcia’s case is as well known as it is extraordinary.” Now with the judge’s order in effect, Abrego will resume complying with pretrial conditions in his criminal case under the supervision of U.S. Pretrial Services.

Editorial credit: Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com