The cover story: The AI arms race is changing everything

If you’re finding it difficult to keep up with all the artificial intelligence (AI) news these days, don’t worry. We cover it for a living, and we feel exactly the same way.

So when TIME’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal asked us, last week, to put together a piece giving some perspective on how and why AI has exploded into the cultural consciousness in the last year, we jumped at the chance.

Over the last few months, both of us have been interviewing insiders at all levels of the AI world, from impoverished data labelers in Kenya all the way up to the CEOs steering the most influential AI companies on the planet.

We’ve also seen AI technology creep into our own jobs. AI transcription services have slashed hours of time we would have spent transcribing interviews every week. AI news recommendation engines are making it easier to sift through information. And ChatGPT can help with one of the trickiest parts of any journalist’s job: brainstorming snappy headlines. All of this has left us with a kaleidoscopic perspective on the last 12 months of breakneck change in the AI world. Now, we’ve taken a breather to explain how it all comes together.

As we conceptualized this story, we decided to tap our experiences covering other sectors of the tech economy. Andrew has covered crypto extensively, and Billy has reported on the trials and tribulations of social media platforms. Are the AI companies learning from the very public failings of those two industries? Is the hype surrounding generative AI just another cycle of enthusiasm and fast money that will eventually evaporate?

In this week’s cover story, we make the argument that this time is different—and that you should be concerned at least as much as you’re excited.