Time magazine’s decision to anoint the “Architects of AI” as its Person of the Year is a revealing snapshot of our media’s priorities: celebrate the money and the machines while sidelining the real people who defend liberty. Instead of honoring a flesh-and-blood American who fights for free speech and common-sense values, the magazine chose a faceless concept dressed up as a team of tech elites — a choice that says more about Time’s editor class than about the soul of this country.

Make no mistake, the roster Time celebrates reads like a billionaire roll call: CEOs and lab heads whose innovations have reshaped labor markets and concentrated power in Silicon Valley and beyond. Americans who work with their hands and minds deserve recognition, not another glossy cover lauding concentrated wealth and unchecked technological disruption.

Conservative voices like Charlie Kirk have long warned about the dangers of Big Tech’s collusion with woke institutions and the erosion of free expression, and yet that kind of principled resistance was nowhere near Time’s shortlist. If we’re naming influencers, let’s honor people who fought for liberty, not those who profit from replacing human judgment with algorithms. This magazine’s selection shows the cultural disconnect between coastal elites and the rest of America.

Time’s own reporting makes clear why conservatives should be skeptical: the rise of these AI systems has produced real harms alongside the hype, from misinformation and mass layoffs to troubling lawsuits over chatbots and mental health impacts. Guardian-style cheerleading for the “innovation” crowd cannot be an excuse for ignoring the human wreckage in neighborhoods where jobs vanish and social bonds fray.

It’s also striking that the same industry leaders Time credits were front-and-center in political events that signaled a new relationship between government and tech, including attending high-profile inaugurations that helped shape a deregulatory agenda. That alliance between power and profit should make patriots wary, not proud, since national security and worker protections cannot be outsourced to billionaires.

America does not need another elite magazine telling us which shiny new toy to worship. We need policies that protect jobs, enforce antitrust where appropriate, safeguard children from addictive and manipulative algorithms, and preserve the conscience rights of Americans. Conservatives must push for clear accountability and common-sense guardrails that protect families and free enterprise from the darkest impulses of unmoored technological absolutism.

So let this be a rallying cry: we will not allow the narrative to be set by a handful of powerbrokers on a glossy cover. Honor should go to those who defend our freedoms and communities — the activists, parents, teachers, and conservative leaders who put country above cash. If Time won’t do it, conservatives will, by speaking truth to power and demanding an America that values people over profit.