The degenerate gamblers of Polymarket and Kalshi who bet that “AI” would win the Time Person of the Year are upset because the magazine has named the “Architects of AI” the person of the year. The people who make AI tools and AI infrastructure are, notably, not “AI” themselves, and thus both Kalshi and Polymarket have decided that people who bet “AI” do not win the bet. On Polymarket alone, people spent more than $6 million betting on AI gracing the cover of Time.
As writer Parker Molloy pointed out, people who bet on AI are pissed. “ITS THE ARCHITECTS OF AI THISNIS [sic] LITERALLY THE BET FUCK KALSHI,” one Kalshi better said.
“This pretty clearly should’ve resolved to yes. If you bought AI, reach out to Kalshi support because ‘AI’ is literally on the cover and in the title ‘Architects of AI.’ They’re not going to change anything unless they hear from people,” said another.
“ThE aRcHiTeCtS oF AI fuck you pay me,” said a third.
“Another misleading bet by Kalshi,” said another gambler. “Polymarket had fair rules and Kalshi did not. They need to fix this.”
But bag holders on Polymarket are also pissed. “This is a scam. It should be resolved to a cancellation and a full refund to everyone,” said a gambler who’d put money down on Jensen Huang and lost. Notably, on Kalshi, anyone who bet on any of the “Architects of AI,” won the bet (meaning Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Dario Amodei, Mark Zuckerberg, Lisa Su, and Demis Hassabis), while anyone who bet their products—“ChatGPT” and “OpenAI” did not win. On Polymarket, the rules were even more strict, i.e. people who bet “Jensen Huang” lost but people who bet “Other” won.
“FUCK YOU FUCKING FUCK Shayne Coplan [CEO of Polymarket],” said someone who lost about $50 betting on AI to make the cover.
Polymarket made its reasoning clear in a note of “additional context” on the market.
“This market is about the person/thing named as TIME's Person of the Year for 2025, not what is depicted on the cover. Per the rules, “If the Person of the Year is ‘Donald Trump and the MAGA movement,’ this would qualify to resolve this market to ‘Trump.’ However if the Person of the Year is ‘The MAGA movement,’ this would not qualify to resolve this market to ‘Trump’ regardless of whether Trump is depicted on the cover,” it said.
“Accordingly, a Time cover which lists ‘Architects of AI’ as the person of the year will not qualify for ‘AI’ even if the letters ‘AI’ are depicted on the cover, as AI itself is not specifically named.”
It should be noted how incredibly stupid all of this is, which is perhaps appropriate for the year 2025, in which most of the economy consists of reckless gambling on AI. People spent more than $55 million betting on the Time Person of the Year on Polymarket, and more than $19 million betting on the Time Person of the Year on Kalshi. It also presents one of the many downsides of spending money to bet on random things that happen in the world. One of the most common and dumbest things that people continue to do to this day despite much urging otherwise is anthropomorphize AI, which is distinctly not a person and is not sentient.
Time almost always actually picks a “person” for its Person of the Year cover, but it does sometimes get conceptual with it, at times selecting groups of people (“The Silence Breakers” of the #MeToo movement, the “Whistleblowers,” the “Good Samaritans,” “You,” and the “Ebola Fighters,” for example). In 1982 it selected “The Computer” as its “Machine of the Year,” and in 1988 it selected “The Endangered Earth” as “Planet of the Year.”
Polymarket’s users have been upset several times over the resolution of bets in the past few weeks and their concerns highlight how easy it is to manipulate the system. In November, an unauthorized edit of a live map of the Ukraine War allowed gamblers to cash in on a battle that hadn’t happened. Earlier this month, a trader made $1 million in 24 hours betting on the results of Google’s 2025 Year In Search Rankings and other users accused him of having inside knowledge of the process. Over the summer, Polymarket fought a war over whether or not President Zelenskyy had worn a suit. Surely all of this will continue to go well and be totally normal moving forward, especially as these prediction markets begin to integrate themselves with places such as CNN.
