"The Architects of AI" are this year's TIME Person of the Year. We asked Google's Gemini, "Can you list when the front cover of TIME featuring Person of the Year has turned out to be a curse?" Gemini responded as follows: "While TIME Magazine maintains that "Person of the Year" is a measure of influence (for better or worse) rather than an endorsement, the distinction is often lost on the public. Consequently, there is a recurring pattern known as the "TIME Cover Curse"—where recipients of the title suffer assassinated reputations, political downfalls, or literal death shortly after the issue hits newsstands."
For example, Jeff Bezos was named Person of the Year at the end of 1999, at the peak of the dot-com bubble. Within 18 months, the bubble burst, and Amazon's stock lost over 90% of its value (though he obviously recovered in the long run).
Here's another example: Elon Musk capped a massive year for Tesla and SpaceX by winning the title at the end of 2021. The following year was disastrous for him: he bought Twitter (now X), his personal reputation took a severe hit, and he became the first person in history to lose $200 billion in net worth.
We have been warned.
