All people or things which appear on the cover will resolve YES. If there are multiple versions of the cover, an appearance on any one version of the cover is sufficient for YES.
A straightforward non-photographic depiction (painting, caricature, AI-generated image, etc) is sufficient for YES if it's clear to me from the depiction itself who (or what) is being depicted.
Abstract artistic representations won't qualify as an appearance of any real thing, but can be submitted as explicit answers. For example, a glowing floating brain with circuit traces probably qualifies for YES on "[an abstract representation of Artificial Intelligence]". For these, my interpretation of the image will be influenced by the headline and article contents.
Other assertions about the contents of the cover can be submitted. For example "[one person, a man]" would resolve YES if the cover depicts exactly one person, who is a man.
In keeping with the requirements above for depiction to be clear, if I am unable to determine whether an option is satisfied, it will resolve NO. For example "[exactly one person, a man]" would resolve NO if the cover depicts exactly one person, who is of indeterminate gender. (This is not a strong commitment to completely avoid N/A, but I expect to reserve that for more deeply unexpected situations.)
If TIME has a Something-Else of the Year (instead of Person), this market refers to that issue. Whatever appears on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year.
I may bet to set reasonable initial probabilities for answers I add. I expect to exit those positions and will not otherwise bet.
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Update 2025-12-13 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): For answers about the number of people on the cover (like "Exactly one person"):
If there are multiple versions of the cover, the answer will resolve YES if:
Each cover has at most one depiction of a person, AND
At least one cover has a depiction of a person, AND
If multiple covers have depictions of a person, they are of the same person
If the first two conditions are met but it's unclear whether it's the same person across covers, resolution may be N/A
@Marnix If there are multiple versions of the cover, I'm inclined to interpret this as the combination of:
Each cover has at most one depiction of a person.
At least one cover has a depiction of a person.
If multiple covers have depictions of a person, they are of the same person.
If the first two points are satisfied, but on the last point I can't tell whether it's the same person, I'm inclined toward N/A.
Is this consistent with your intent in submitting the answer?
@jcb My intent with this submission is, as the rules suggest, any cover has exactly one person on it, even if it's a weird case where there's 5 different covers of different people.
@Marnix Okay, thanks. For some reason I have the impulse to treat numbers of people differently, but it's simpler and probably better to be consistent.