TIME magazine has sparked outrage after excluding Elon Musk from its list of “Most Influential People in AI” while Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson appears on the cover.
The second annual ‘TIME 100 AI Listaimed at showcasing the brightest minds in artificial intelligence, came under fire Thursday for what many see as a bold oversight.
Musk, the driving force behind Tesla’s self-driving technology, CEO of SpaceX and owner of X, was conspicuously absent from the lineup this year, despite playing a key role in founding The Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink and OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.
Instead, the magazine decided to include ‘Black Widow’ star Scarlett Johansson among the 18 personalities on the cover.
TIME magazine has sparked outrage after excluding Elon Musk from its list of “Most Influential People in AI” while Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson appears on the cover.
Musk, the driving force behind Tesla’s self-driving technology, data collection efforts and the Optimus humanoid robot, was conspicuously absent from this year’s lineup.
The actress became the center of the conversation about AI after OpenAI asked her to use her voice for its new chatbot.
Even though Johansson rejected their offer, they went ahead with a chatbot using a voice she said was so similar to her own that her own family couldn’t tell the difference.
The star continued to use her platform to push back against deepfakes, and OpenAI removed the offending voice from its chatbot without admitting it was inspired by Johansson.
Some of the other names on the list include: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Many expressed outrage online that Musk and others were excluded from the list.
Roblox project manager Peter Yang criticized the magazine’s cover on X (formerly Twitter).
“It’s hilarious that Scarlett Johansson appears here, but there’s no one like Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Ilya Sutskever, Andrej Karpathy or even… Mark Zuckerberg,” he wrote in the post, which has garnered nearly 200,000 views.
Other names were completely omitted from the list.
Among them was Devo Harris, founder of Adventurous, whose patented AI technology allows users to speak directly into videos and receive responses in real time, a platform Disney uses to create interactive videos, and the startup is named as one of the The most innovative companies according to Fast Company of 2024.
Many users agreed with Yang’s take on the snubs, with one commenting: “This is a great representation of the total collapse of corporate media.”
Another added: “I’m pretty sure I can name 100 more influential people in the future of our AI than most of the people on this cover,” wrote a third user.
Other users had their say on the decision. One user said: “I think the goal was to make the cover go viral by making people wonder why certain people were on it. It worked.”
Instead, the magazine decided to include ‘Black Widow’ star Scarlett Johansson among the 18 personalities on the cover.
Some of the other names on the list include: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at the Summit building at the Seattle Convention Center
TIME highlighted the diversity of the list on its website, explaining that it features 91 new entries compared to last year, spanning various companies, regions and perspectives.
They specifically mentioned the age range, from deepfake protection advocate Francesca Mani, 15, to Chinese computer scientist Andrew Yao, 77.
The magazine said: “Our purpose in creating TIME100 AI is to put leaders like Pichai and Whittaker in dialogue and open up their perspectives to TIME readers. That’s why we’re excited to share with you the second edition of TIME100 AI.”
“We created this program in the spirit of TIME100, the world’s most influential community. TIME’s expert editors and correspondents, led by Emma Barker and Ayesha Javed, interviewed their sources and consulted with members of last year’s list to find the best additions to our community of AI leaders.”
The magazine clarified that 91 of the members on the 2024 list were not on last year’s list, saying it is “an indication of how quickly this field is changing.”
In June, Musk predicted a “10 to 20 percent chance” of a scenario in which AI wipes out humanity.
Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Musk told the audience that even the most positive outcomes of AI would lead to an “existential crisis” for humanity.
Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce and owner of TIME, pictured (left) with Elon Musk (right)
The cover of last year’s TIME100 issue of the most influential people in the field of AI
Musk has long been a critic of AI and has often claimed that its unchecked development could lead to the destruction of humanity.
Today Musk reiterated that point once again, saying: “I tend to agree with Geoff Hinton, one of the godfathers of AI, and he thinks there’s a 10-20% chance of something terrible happening.”
Last year, Musk was one of 1,000 signatories calling for a pause in AI development.
The billionaire has even warned that AI could be “one of the greatest threats to humanity.”
However, as Tesla’s CEO has done before, Musk also argued that the potential benefits outweigh the risks.