Editor’s Note
When TIME calls and asks you to stand alongside some of the most consequential technologists, inventors, and innovators in the world — and to answer one question about what defines America right now — you don’t hesitate. You answer with the truth you’ve been living.
As part of its landmark Our America 250 project marking the nation’s Semiquincentennial, TIME asked 250 experts across ten categories to identify what captures an essential element of American life today. In the tech innovations installment, they invited 25 insiders — founders, inventors, thinkers — to name the innovation that most reflects where this country is headed. Fellow contributors include the co-CEO of Waymo, renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil, and leaders from some of the most iconic companies and platforms in the world.
I was honored to be among them. And my answer was clear.
I did not choose artificial intelligence because it is new. I chose it because it is the most honest mirror this country has ever built. AI reflects everything America is — our capacity for breathtaking innovation and our unfinished obligation to decide who that innovation actually serves. That tension is the story of this nation. It has been the story of my life’s work. And it is the defining question of the next 250 years.
This is also the central argument of my book, Capitalism for All — that technology, like capitalism itself, is only as good as the number of people it reaches. The AI Ethics Council I co-chair with Sam Altman, and the HOPE AI™ platform I co -chair with Van Jones, and we launched through Operation HOPE, Inc., exist because I refuse to let this revolution happen to underserved communities rather than happen for them.
I am proud to share my contribution to this historic TIME collection with our Bryant Journal readers. Read it below.
— John Hope Bryant
Read the original, full collection of TIME 25 Tech Leaders here.
John Hope Bryant — founder of Bryant Group Ventures, Operation HOPE, Inc, publisher of the Bryant Journal and author of his 7th book Capitalism for All: Inclusive Economics and the Future Proofing of America, now a bestseller. Bryant was recently named a member of the Forbes 250.
