Excerpt from my daily journal — July 4, 2076:
I was getting ready to celebrate the 300th anniversary of America’s founding, and my own 125th birthday coming up in a few months, when an old friend dropped by. He set on my desk a dog-eared copy of my book Founder’s Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump, which he said he found in an antiquarian book shop nearby.
“Impressive work,” he remarked as he sat down in my ergonomic couch that also gives a readout of all vital systems as well as an instant EKG. “Did you ever think everything you wrote about for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, would come true by the 300th?”
I glanced at the book’s inside cover. There the name of its previous owner was scrawled in blue ink: “Elon Musk.” I was gratified to know he had had a chance to read Founder’s Fire, since he figures prominently in its later chapters.
I considered my friend’s question.
“Well, there were some difficulties at the time the book came out,” I said. He was looking over my quantum computer laptop as I spoke, but I could see he was paying attention.
“I don’t suppose anyone foresaw the day when Ukraine’s high-tech economy would have to bail out a bankrupt Russia, and change the whole complexion of eastern Europe.”
“There was the whole issue of what to do about Iran’s nuclear program — that all seems so distant now—and whether the war in the Persian Gulf was distracting from the real threat to the United States and the West at the time, namely China.”
He nodded. “I remember. And everyone was agitated over the on-going war between Ukraine and Russia. I don’t suppose anyone foresaw the day when Ukraine’s high-tech economy would have to bail out a bankrupt Russia, and change the whole complexion of eastern Europe. Not even you.”
“No, I missed that completely,” I had to admit, “I also never imagined that Taiwan would have to bail out a bankrupt mainland China, and that Taiwan Semiconductor would end up making its headquarters in Beijing’s Forbidden Palace as a century of Communist rule suddenly came to an end.”
My friend had found the switch that opened my quantum computer’s virtual reality projector. Images of the Forbidden Palace with the Taiwanese flag flying above, filled the room.
“No one realized that the end of Iran’s Islamic Republic would defuse radical Islam around the world, either,” I remarked.
“Oh yes,” my friend said, “there was that moment when a British Labour government offered to turn Westminster Abbey into a mosque, in order to stop the riots there. But then the good sense of British voters prevailed.”
The computer heard us talking about Westminster Abbey, and now was projecting a 3D virtual history lesson of the British monarchy that covered the room’s four walls, as narrated by an AI-generated Laurence Olivier sound-like.
“I also never imagined that Taiwan would have to bail out a bankrupt mainland China, and that Taiwan Semiconductor would end up making its headquarters in Beijing’s Forbidden Palace.”
“And eventually as a pro-Western government took power in Tehran,” I added, “and the Arab Gulf states took more interest in modernization than religious fundamentalism, a whole era of religious wars in the Middle East and Europe came to an end. Just like when the Soviet Union folded up back in the 20th century in 1991, and Communist insurrections around the world suddenly stopped.”
“What about in the United States? How bleak did things look there at first?” my friend asked.
I smiled. “There was the endless wrangling between the White House and Congress over what was ‘constitutional’ and what was not, and an endless parade of federal judges striking down or restoring this or that law or executive order. No wonder so many were losing faith in the democratic process! But I knew there was one part of the constitution that no one was talking about, except me in Founder’s Fire. It’s the article that I believed then, and now, would save the country and ultimately the future.”
“Which was that?” he asked. Now we were watching a 3-D visualization of the building of the U.S. Capitol in the 1860’s.
“It’s Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 8,” I said, “the paragraph that established the right to intellectual property and patents, in order ‘to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.’ It’s been the fountainhead of American innovation and scientific discovery ever since the U.S. Patent Office first opened its doors, right down to the Brain Computer Interface technologies which Elon Musk and others pioneered that saved one of our friends from the effects of a massive stroke, or the biotech nanotechnology that created the drugs to save another friend from Alzheimer’s.”
“Yes, that’s been pretty important,” he confessed.
“It’s why I never worried that China would catch up on technological innovation. I sensed it would bankrupt itself trying to replicate through totalitarianism what’s built into the American way of life. You know, it was Abraham Lincoln who said the patent law would unleash the ‘fire of genius’ and he’s been right, for the past three centuries.”
“I guess I wouldn’t be here without it,” my friend said.
“Correct,” I explained, pointing to him. “Do you think you’d exist, as an AI-powered robot able to speak 130 languages and carry out deep repairs on the nuclear fusion reactor in the backyard, without the patents that AI’s original founders acquired? When I wrote the book, AI chip maker NVIDIA held more than 23,000 patents; Google more than 70,000. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei held 61 personally, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman 23 — that is, until Sam became president and used an AI-driven crypto/quantum app to balance the federal budget.”
“Well, it’s certainly been a remarkable 50 years since your book came out and predicted all this,” my friend said. “Enjoy your birthday celebrations, you deserve it.”
He turned to go, then paused to ask.
“Are you planning to return to Earth, or are you going to stay here through the weekend?”
“No, I’m going to stay here on Mars,” I replied. “I’ve got some things to do, and besides I don’t want to miss the celebrations this weekend as Mars becomes the 51st state.”
Arthur Herman is a New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Finalist, and Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas-Austin. He is the author most recently of Founder’s Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump.