To mark the arrival of the 21st century, in 1999 the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine offered an
Olympian preview of the decades ahead. The Academy foresaw a world in which “yesterday’s science fiction [would] enter the marketplace: animal cloning, talking electronic road maps installed in
automobiles, powerful computers as small as a pack of cigarettes.” Its Report declared that America’s “uniquely powerful system for creating new knowledge and putting it to work for everyone’s benefit” had been the primary engine of productivity growth in the 20th century and
would likewise be the single largest determinant for the 21st century.