Table of contents for September 16, 2024 in TIME Magazine

This year’s list shows what can happen when AI moves out of the lab and into the world As we were finishing this year’s TIME100 AI, I had two conversations, with two very different TIME100 AI honorees, that made clear the stakes of this technological transformation. Sundar Pichai, who joined Google in 2004 and became CEO of the world’s fourth most valuable company nine years ago, told me that introducing the company’s billions of users to artificial intelligence through Google’s products amounts to “one of the biggest improvements we’ve done in 20 years.” Speaking that same day, Meredith Whittaker, a former Google employee and critic of the company who, as the president of Signal, has become one of the world’s most influential advocates for privacy, expressed alarm at the…

PRINCIPAL RESEARCHER AND AI VISIONARY / GOOGLE Ray Kurzweil Ray Kurzweil’s eerily prescient predictions about AI are underpinned by a simple line chart. The chart, tracking the amount of computing power you could buy for a dollar over time, has grown exponentially for the past 85 years. Kurzweil initially used it to prioritize his inventions as a young programmer, focusing on a revolutionary print-to-speech machine for the blind in the 1970s, then early speech-recognition software in the ’80s. Eventually, he started writing about what he believed advances in computing power would bring, and his predicting “took on a life of its own.” In 1990, Kurzweil correctly projected that AI would beat the best human player at chess before the turn of the millennium, and that mobile devices connected to a…

An allergy to over-the-counter pain medication changed Natasha Rothwell’s life. Soon after she moved to Los Angeles, in 2015, to write for Issa Rae’s era-defining HBO dramedy Insecure, she had some dental work done and found herself in so much pain that she popped an Advil and crossed her fingers that it would be OK. It wasn’t. Realizing that the loud, ragged breathing she was suddenly hearing was her own, she drove herself to Cedars-Sinai in a panic. The solo hospital trip forced the epiphany that, though rarely alone, she was profoundly lonely. “For the better part of my 20s, I was running around like a heat-seeking missile, trying to find the one,” she recalls. “Being alone was the thing I thought I was afraid of.” In search of…

Photographer Evan Jenkins documented the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as Democrats nominated VP Kamala Harris. Whether he was capturing the crowd’s raucous reaction to President Joe Biden’s speech (right) or the best examples of swag (left), his goal, he tells TIME, was to show “how people express themselves individually and in a group when they believe in something strongly.” time.com/dnc-photos PREMIERE Viktor, a TIME Studios documentary, debuted Sept. 8 at the Toronto International Film Festival. Olivier Sarbil’s film is about the experiences of a deaf photographer during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On the covers THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN AI Photo-illustration by Klawe Rzeczy for TIME 1) Jensen Huang 2) Scarlett Johansson 3) Vinod Khosla 4) C.C. Wei 5) Faisal Al Bannai 6) Amandeep Singh Gill…

On Super Bowl Sunday in Las Vegas, Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs approached the football, as many in the crowd of 62,000 at Allegiant Stadium held their phones aloft to capture the most anticipated moment of the NFL season: the beginning of the big game. More than 100 million rapt viewers also tuned in. Butker’s boot, however, sailed over the head of the San Francisco 49ers kick returner, out of the end zone for a touchback. Bor-ing. There were 13 kickoffs in Super Bowl LVIII. And 13 dull touchbacks. The NFL is seeking to sack such tedium. The league has passed new kickoff rules for this upcoming season, which begins on Sept. 5. Players will now line up in closer quarters. The goal: eliminate the downfield collisions…

Friends can be great—until they’re not. Psychologists say they hear often about so-called toxic friendships, which veer away from the health benefits we’re accustomed to and instead take a hammer to emotional and psychological well-being. “A lot of what I see in these dynamics is that one person is acting in good faith, and the other is being manipulative or controlling,” says Brooke Sprowl, a therapist in Santa Monica, Calif. “It really takes a toll on your self-trust, because you’re being told that if you set boundaries, you’re being selfish, or if you’re not giving in to all of their needs, you’re letting them down.” People with toxic friends might also experience self-doubt, she adds, as well as anxiety and depression. But how do you know if your friendship…

There are many flavors of friendship. Most people have situation-specific friendships, like with gym buddies or work pals, that may come and go, as well as a handful of close friends they know deeply. But rarest of all are the true forever best friends who are there for decades on end, through jobs, moves, relationships, fights, losses, and life stages. What makes a friendship durable enough to get to that level? Shared traits, interests, and backgrounds help, says Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist and author of Friends: Understanding the Power of Our Most Important Relationships. Dunbar’s work suggests there are seven areas of overlap that are crucial: speaking the same language, growing up in the same area, having similar career trajectories, and sharing hobbies, viewpoints, senses of humor, and…

CEO / GOOGLE AND ALPHABET Sundar Pichai It’s hard to imagine what modern life would look like without Google. Its search business prints hundreds of billions of dollars in yearly revenue. Starting over two decades ago, Google began channeling some of that money toward AI research. Its industry-leading scientists were responsible for many of the breakthroughs that drove the field to its current inflection point. And yet the product that in late 2022 kick-started today’s AI boom, ChatGPT, came from a startup backed by Google’s major competitor, Microsoft. Suddenly Google was no longer the symbolic leader of the AI race, but instead playing catch-up. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, who joined the company in 2004, took that hurdle in stride. Google wasn’t the first to build a search engine, he points…

SECRETARY-GENERAL’S ENVOY ON TECHNOLOGY / UNITED NATIONS Amandeep Singh Gill Amandeep Singh Gill sees this moment as the world’s narrow shot to avoid another Cold War–style arms race with AI. “In the mid-1950s—the London talks, when [Dwight] Eisenhower was the President and [Nikolai] Bulganin was the leader on the Soviet side—there was a very interesting opportunity that was missed to prevent an arms race that took off. Then you had the Cuban missile crisis, and the world came close to the brink of nuclear war,” he says. “Why not be more thoughtful about this today?” As the U.N. Secretary-General’s envoy on technology, Gill coordinates digital cooperation among member states, industry, and civil society. He also helps stakeholders understand what is going on with the technology. In October 2023, the U.N.…

Death can both tear family members apart and bind them closer—often simultaneously. That’s the mysterious dynamic writer-director Azazel Jacobs mines in His Three Daughters, a story of three mismatched sisters who gather in their childhood home, a modest, rent-controlled Manhattan apartment, to usher their dying father into the whatever-it-is-that-comes-next. The eldest, bossy, uptight Katie (Carrie Coon), feels the need to steer the ship, as everyone else seems incapable; she’s particularly obsessed with a “Do not resuscitate” form that her father was supposed to have signed when he was still cogent. Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) has left her family, thousands of miles away, to join her sisters in this emotionally rattling endeavor. A onetime Deadhead and yoga nut, she seems to be the calmest of the lot, though her quietude barely…

It’s been over 35 years since Beetlejuice was released. Were you a fan of the original movie when it came out? I was absolutely a fan. It came out at a time when I wasn’t aware of what was a studio movie vs. an independent movie. But it definitely felt very independent and like it was just mine. I loved it. What stood out to you about Tim Burton’s process as a filmmaker? We’re blessed with very few directors whose films are just so singular and so visionary, and where there’s a very short distance between their brain and the screen. [Federico] Fellini is one. And [David] Lynch. I think Tim falls into that category. We’re lucky enough that the system has allowed him to have that outlet and sort…

Donald Trump repeatedly mispronounces Vice President Kamala Harris’ first name. He’s said world leaders would treat her “like a play toy.” He stunned a roomful of Black journalists in late July when he claimed Harris, who is both Black and of South Asian descent, “happened to turn Black” a few years ago. Belittling comments and demeaning monikers are tools Trump has wielded for decades in politics and business to try to denigrate his opponents. This election is no different. And as the first woman of color running as a major party’s presidential nominee, Harris will likely continue to see political attacks with racist or misogynistic undertones until Election Day. For many Black women attending the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the advice they had for Harris in the final…

DIED Maria Branyas World’s oldest Among the key moments in Maria Branyas’ life—her birth in San Francisco in 1907; a move to Catalonia in 1915; her marriage to a Catalan doctor named Joan Moret; and having three children—one that took place in January 2023 stands out. That was when she became the world’s oldest person, a title she held until she died at 117 in a Spanish nursing home, which her family announced Aug. 20. Branyas’ age was verified by the nonprofit Gerontology Research Group. Branyas, who lived through the 1918–1920 flu pandemic, gained fame in 2020 after she became the then oldest known person to recover from COVID-19. “This pandemic has revealed that older people are the forgotten ones of our society,” she said after her recovery. “They…

Walking down the skin-care aisle can cause sensory overload. Gels, creams, essences, and serums—so many serums!—promise to revitalize, exfoliate, hydrate, brighten, soothe, correct, and all but reverse time. What’s a skin-care novice to choose? Stick to the basics, says Dr. Jessica Wu, who practices cosmetic and clinical dermatology in Beverly Hills, Calif. The first step to developing the best routine is to understand your own skin: Is it oily, dry, or in between? To figure that out, wash your face, and then consider how it feels two hours later. “Is it oily? Is it dry and tight, or is it feeling pretty?” Wu asks. “That gives you a general idea of where you fall in that spectrum.” From there, you can design a routine that requires only a handful…

Long-term friendships often involve multiple “turning points,” or moments when bonds either fray or tighten, studies show. Turning points can be dramatic, like a betrayal, or mundane, like moving away for work. The former may be more complicated—though not impossible—to address, but even if you simply drifted apart, it can take some effort to get back on track. First things first: get out of your own head. Research suggests people resist contacting old friends because it feels awkward or they fear the outreach won’t land. But people typically respond well, even more so when the interaction is unexpected, says Miriam Kirmayer, a clinical psychologist who specializes in adult friendship. Sending that message is “an opportunity to make someone’s day,” she says. That said, your overture is more likely to…

Work friendships are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, work is vastly more bearable—and maybe even strays into fun—when you’re pals with the people you spend time with each day. Friendship can make odious tasks tolerable and worthwhile tasks more satisfying. But friendship is about authenticity, acceptance, and agenda-free companionship; the point of work is to get things done, whether or not you like your co-workers. The two aims often come into conflict, creating awkwardness and stress. Here are some tips for being a colleague and a chum. Acknowledge any tension. When co-worker friends disagree, they can experience “role confusion”—they’re not sure if it’s more important to be a good employee or a good friend. It’s especially tough to be a friend and a supervisor. Experts say it’s…