America 500? What the U.S. will look like in another 250 years

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Just 4 years aft helium signed the Declaration of Independence, but earlier the colonies would triumph the warfare that granted their freedom, Benjamin Franklin was already reasoning astir the future.

Franklin wrote a letter in 1780 to his adjacent person Joseph Priestley, the idiosyncratic who discovered oxygen, lamenting being calved astatine the opening of the technological revolution. He dreamed not conscionable of what the United States and the satellite would look similar successful 250 years but 1,000 years.

"The accelerated Progress existent Science present makes, occasions my Regretting sometimes that I was calved truthful soon. It is intolerable to ideate the Height to which whitethorn beryllium carried successful a 1000 Years the Power of Man implicit Matter," Franklin wrote.

Maybe nary antheral successful the country's 250 years was much of a multi-hyphenate than Franklin: politician, diplomat, inventor, journalist, postmaster-general and adjacent the originator of the pros and cons list.

But his predictions of what could hap 1,000 years from erstwhile helium jotted them down successful a missive to a person showed helium was besides thing of a futurist — adjacent if the word didn't yet exist.

In the letter, helium presaged maglev trains, writing, "We whitethorn possibly larn to deprive ample Masses of their Gravity & springiness them implicit Levity, for the involvement of casual Transport." He besides believed each diseases would beryllium "prevented oregon cured, not excepting adjacent that of Old Age."

That being said, artificial intelligence, genetically engineered humans and a conflict for the power of abstraction were not connected his paper similar they are now, 250 years into the state Franklin helped form.

Like Franklin implicit 2 centuries ago, CBS News spoke to 3 futurists astir what they deliberation the U.S. volition look similar successful the centuries ahead.

But conversations astir the aboriginal often besides sermon the past. It was George Santayana, a teen surviving successful Boston astatine the clip of the American centennial, who aboriginal wrote, "Those who cannot retrieve the past are condemned to repetition it."

With the U.S. successful 1 of its astir fractured clip periods successful caller memory, it mightiness beryllium casual to usage the existent clime to portend the future.

"When you unrecorded during a time, it makes you consciousness that this is an bonzer lawsuit successful the United States arsenic a nation," said George Friedman, the laminitis of Geopolitical Futures and writer of "The Next 100 Years" and "The Storm Before the Calm." "When you look backmost successful past and instrumentality a look astatine the different times, this isn't thing overmuch worse than Richard Nixon. So yeah, we get unusual presidents, but the thought that we are successful a uniquely divided presumption astatine this constituent is false."

Health

Franklin wrote astir radical surviving for 1,000 years — specifically, surpassing the ages of Biblical figures similar Methuselah and Noah. While that hasn't travel to walk yet (to beryllium fair, we inactive person 750 years near connected Franklin's timeline), advances successful aesculapian exertion person travel a agelong mode since the 1770s.

The accelerated improvement of the COVID-19 vaccine successful 2020 is simply a premier illustration of that, said Amy Webb, laminitis of the Future Today Strategy Group and writer of "The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life successful the Age of Synthetic Biology."

"The familial series for the archetypal COVID vaccine was designed connected a machine successful astir 2 days," she told CBS News via email. "This was conscionable mindbogglingly incredible. We crossed a threshold – biology was thing we had read-edit-write entree to, and mRNA worked!"

Despite the committedness of mRNA vaccines, they person travel nether the scrutiny of the existent medication and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who canceled astir $500 cardinal successful grants for probe connected mRNA vaccines successful August 2025. Kennedy said the vaccines caused "more hazard than benefits," an statement not supported by the technological community.

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Regardless, Webb called the committedness of the processing blend of exertion and healthcare "extraordinary."

"Imagine a strategy that detects illness earlier symptoms appear, wherever your bath doubles arsenic a diagnostic lab, and therapies are tailored to your genome alternatively than the statistical average," she said.

Webb described the aboriginal of biology arsenic "an engineering discipline."

"We volition turn materials, manufacture drugs, and nutrient nutrient the mode we present constitute software. Think: programmable, iterative, decentralized," she said. "That moves full swaths of concern from extraction to cultivation, and it rewrites proviso chains that person been unchangeable since the concern era."

If you're reasoning this is starting to dependable similar the genetically engineered aboriginal from the 1997 sci-fi movie "Gattaca," you're not acold off.

"One of the things that I've been looking astatine for a agelong time, which is erstwhile the partition betwixt biology and exertion begins to fall," said Brian David Johnson, an writer and futurist prof astatine Arizona State University. "Sometimes we telephone it synthetic biology, immoderate would telephone it cistron engineering, but it's that thought of being capable to determination backmost and distant betwixt the integer realm and the carnal realm with precise small friction."

"What does it mean to exemplary beingness and past beryllium capable to physique life?" Johnson asked. "What does it mean from a worldly standpoint to beryllium capable to bash that? … I deliberation those moments are things each of a abrupt wherever it truly changes however we deliberation astir quality beingness and our regular life. And to me, that's 1 of those large things and it is coming."

Space

Founding begetter John Adams, hardly known for his boundless enthusiasm, famously wrote connected the future of America successful 1787, saying, "A imaginable into futurity successful America, is similar contemplating the heavens done the telescopes of Herschell. Objects stupendous successful their magnitudes and motions onslaught america from each quarters, and capable america with amazement!"

Adams utilized astronomer William Herschel's groundbreaking telescopes, with which helium discovered Uranus the aforesaid twelvemonth the colonies won their independency (1781), arsenic a metaphor for conscionable however astonishing the aboriginal of America could be. Even arsenic an amateur astronomer himself, Adams astir apt didn't cognize however overmuch abstraction would play a relation successful the country's future.

The U.S. is presently successful a caller benignant of abstraction race, adjacent though it has been happening mostly successful the inheritance — with thousands of satellites successful debased Earth orbit.

"You look astatine 6G (mobile telephone technology), you look astatine borderline computing, you look astatine space-based communications arsenic well," Johnson said. "And we're going done and gathering this out, we're gathering a overmuch much robust network."

SpaceX presently has more than 10,000 satellites successful debased Earth orbit, and launches much conscionable astir each week. Jeff Bezos' Amazon Leo cognition plans to motorboat thousands successful the coming years and chap American companies similar Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies are doing the same.

"As we commencement to spot the privatization of abstraction with the (low Earth orbit) satellites … that becomes a truly really absorbing small frontier of what does that mean erstwhile we've got this benignant of 360 (degree) connectivity each around, right?" Johnson said.

It's besides changed warfare, Freidman said.

"The Ukraine warfare demonstrated that warfare is not fought arsenic it was successful World War II," helium said. "The cardinal ground of each warfare is intelligence, truthful satellites successful debased Earth orbit tin place targets, nonstop information down to things similar a limb called (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) … and trigger an attack. So it utilized to beryllium the question, 'Who controlled the oceans?' Now, it's the question, 'Who controls low-Earth orbit?'"

Artificial intelligence

Hardly a time goes by successful 2026 erstwhile you don't perceive thing astir artificial intelligence and however it volition alteration the world. Whether that volition beryllium for the bully oregon atrocious is inactive a hotly debated topic, but there's nary 1 near arguing it won't overmake America successful the adjacent respective centuries.

"What AI is pushing america to bash is to fundamentally revalue however we deliberation astir quality labour and however we worth quality labor," Johnson, who antecedently worked arsenic a futurist for IBM, said. "And I mean labour successful the economical sense, but I besides conscionable mean who we are arsenic humans and what we do."

Johnson and Friedman some judge AI volition fundamentally alteration American society. But they don't judge it's thing much than a acquainted cycle.

"We've done it before. Assembly lines did that, the net did that … and the interaction is rather large," Johnson said. "I'm an optimist, right? So I'm like, well, let's worth what it means to beryllium human. … Because if the robots and AI tin bash it, well, fto the robots and AI spell bash it. … Then you benignant of reorient astir however we worth quality beings."

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It's not truthful elemental for Webb, who believes "this rhythm doesn't representation cleanly onto the aged ones."

"The comforting communicative we archer ourselves is that humans ever adapt, that each technological gyration looks scary astatine archetypal and past we each travel retired amended connected the different side," she said. "That's a cherished belief, and it's a unsafe one."

In the twelvemonth 2276

On the 500th day of the United States, determination volition astatine slightest beryllium a fewer items that look the same.

That's due to the fact that the U.S. authorities is burying a time capsule nether Independence National Historical Park successful Philadelphia with items from each 50 states arsenic good arsenic Congress, the Supreme Court and sports leagues similar the NFL, NBA and MLB. By bid of Congress, it volition not beryllium reopened until 2276.

But, the situation present is preparing for a semipermanent aboriginal successful a rapidly changing society, Webb said.

"The halfway contented successful 2026 is that however tin a nine program for its adjacent 50, 100, oregon 250 years erstwhile our existent leaders program lone 18-24 months out? On a 50-year horizon, that means they are optimizing for a satellite that volition nary longer exist," Webb said.

Friedman says America is successful a play of reinventing government, "but our civilization does it successful disfigured ways."

"First, you bust it down, past you physique it up, but that's it. All layers of our culture, thing we do, truthful erstwhile I look astatine that, I don't spot a situation going on. I spot the norm of the American system," helium said.

Join CBS for "The Great American Block Party 250," a primetime peculiar connected Saturday, July 4, hosted by CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and Entertainment Tonight's Nischelle Turner, featuring unrecorded philharmonic performances, celebrations astir the country, and the largest fireworks amusement successful past successful the skies implicit the nation's capital. Tune successful July 4 astatine 8 p.m. ET connected CBS and watercourse it on Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7.

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