“Trust us bro’ doesn’t work anymore. Time for someone checking what the AI is actually doing to humanity,” one X user wrote about the September 7 cover.
Several other users expressed similar concerns. Adam Ghaida, founding engineer of AI-powered personal assistant Orchid, said that “Trust Us is probably the most ominous title they could’ve picked.”
The criticism reflects a broader concern about whether enthusiasm for artificial intelligence has reached a peak. Non-business magazine and newspaper covers have historically served as contrarian indicators, often signaling tops in industry trends or market valuations, according to the late Paul Macrae Montgomery, a renowned stock and bond market forecaster who created the Magazine Cover Indicator.
What the Magazine Cover Indicator signals
Montgomery observed decades ago that when a general-interest magazine places an investment theme on its cover, much of the excitement surrounding that theme may already be priced in. In financial and societal terms, the idea may have become overbought.
For the signal to be valid, Montgomery identified three conditions: the cover must appear in a mainstream magazine rather than a trade or business publication; it must focus on a widely understood idea; and the theme must have already experienced a significant price run-up.
Time’s cover featuring the OpenAI founders meets all three conditions. Artificial intelligence is not only widely discussed around the world but has also attracted billions of dollars in investor capital, venture funding and capital expenditure.
