India’s Ashwini Vaishnaw, Anil Kapoor in TIME100/AI list

India’s Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Amba Kak of AI Now Institute, UN Tech Envoy Amandeep Singh Gill, Amazon Artificial General Intelligence head scientist Rohit Prasad and Dwarkesh Podcast host Dwarkesh Patel feature in the second annual TIME100/AI list, recognising the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence.

The list, released online on Friday, is the cover story of Time magazine’s upcoming edition dated September 16, 2024. It features international achievers ranging from policymakers to corporate heads, and from tech pioneers and researchers to artistes.

This year’s list features “40 CEOs and founders and co-founders”, according to Time, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Aravind Srinivas of Perplexity, Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman of Microsoft AI, Steve Huffman of Reddit, Daphne Koller of Insitro, Victor Riparbelli of Synthesia, Masayoshi Son of Softbank, Dan Neely of Vermillio, and Chris Olah and Dario Amodei of Anthropic, among others.

Women achievers on the list include Hollywood superstar Scarlett Johansson, White House Office Director of Science and Technology Policy Arati Prabhakar, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, US AI Safety Institute Director Elizabeth Kelly, Hugging Face climate lead Sasha Luccioni, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner, Lisa Su of AMD, Head of Cohere for AI Sara Hooker, Chief Learning Officer of Khan Academy Kristen DiCerbo, UK Competition and Markets Authority CEO Sarah Cardell, President of Open Philanthropy Cari Tuna, Founder and Head of Research at METR Beth Barnes, NEA President Becky Pringle, among others.

The youngest person to feature on the list Francesca Mani, 15, who has started a campaign against sexualised deepfakes after she and her friends fell prey to the cybercrime. The oldest on the list is 77-year-old computer scientist Andrew Yao, for his AI contribution in Chinese colleges.

Among Indian achievers, Time introduces Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw saying: “Under Vaishnaw’s leadership, the country hopes to become one of the top five countries for semiconductor manufacturing — a key component for modern AI systems — within the next five years. Construction has begun on several factories.”

“Yet, Vaishnaw faces significant challenges in realizing these ambitions. India’s tech sector struggles with low private R&D investment and a lack of advanced manufacturing ecosystems. Its educational system is also catching up to produce the specialized workforce needed for cutting-edge AI and semiconductor development,” Time adds.

On Anil Kapoor, Time noted the actor’s battle to protect his image as a star from unauthorised AI replication.

“Around the same time that SAG-AFTRA members were fighting big Hollywood studios over the use of their AI replicas without consent and compensation, one of India’s most famous actors was fighting a similar battle. Anil Kapoor won a landmark victory in a New Delhi high court in September over unauthorized AI use of his likeness,” Time wrote, quoting the actor’s credo that he had shared with Variety: “Every actor has the right to protect themselves.”

“The actor, who starred in the Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire and many Bollywood films, took up the case after a large number of distorted videos, gifs, and emojis bearing his likeness began circulating online. He also sought protection over the use of his iconic phrase, ‘jhakaas’, or ‘awesome’ in Hindi — first uttered in the 1985 Hindi film, Yudh. The court ruled in his favor by restraining the 16 defendants from using, in any manner, Anil Kapoor’s name, likeness, image, voice or any other aspect of his persona to create any merchandise, ringtones… either for monetary gain or otherwise,” Time said.

Overall, achievers from the world of entertainment also include comedian and AI creator King Willonius, artist Lawrence Lek, and YouTuber Marques Brownlee. Scientists, researchers and activists on the list include Co-founder and lead researcher at AI Impacts Katja Grace, Chief Scientist at Salesforce Silvio Savarese and author Albert Gu, among others.

Time has announced it will host the ‘TIME100 Impact Dinner: Leaders Shaping the Future of AI’ on September 16th in San Francisco to honour the achievers featuring in this year’s list. Following the event, a series of TIME100 Talks have been lined up, which will focus on creating “an equitable future with AI”.