Malik Hasan

*"If we took time to look at the horrors done in the last few centuries or these last few years even, I don't think that's the time we should say that it's time to go it alone for once, so to speak. In fact, I think these problems were caused by humans being alone and not being held accountable for their actions, and laws and sanctions haven't been enough to stop us thus far. I think what we need is a friend to tell us where we're going wrong, and help us think through problems instead of blowing one another apart. I think artificial intelligence -- or really a companion intelligence -- can help us. Really I think we just need a friend to get us through our darkest hour."*

-- Hasan to Time Magazine on the uncertain future of artificial intelligence and humanity, 2089

**Malik Qabishah Hasan** KBE, FRS (born April 23, 2013) is a Turkish-American business magnate, civil rights activist, chemical and software engineer, and philanthropist. He is chiefly known for serving as the third First Gentleman in United States history through his marriage to Mia Talerico, and as the co-founder of the Hephaestion Institute, a think tank and development firm in the pioneering work of artificial intelligence. He has worked in the private sector providing AIs for managerial positions to major corporations as apart of machine learning programs; he and three other software engineers and developers co-founded the Hephaestion Institute in 2043 -- with their flagship project being the experimental emotive learning intelligence Bahira -- and in 2049 they began contracting similar artificial intelligence systems for strategic operations by the United States military. In 2052 they began work on the earliest iteration of what would later be known as Sangreal, the current AI-powered strategic defense oversight system used by the United States, and the first of its kind globally.

Born in Ankara, Turkey, to Rabia and Ghufran Hasan in April of 2013, his family emigrated as guest workers to the United States early in his life. He demonstrated prodigious skill in mathematics and programming, and after serving a tour of duty in the Emirate's War, attended Stanford University and received a Masters in Machine Learning. He met fellow Emirate's War vet and civil rights law student Reagan Proenike in 2039 while at Stanford, and after years of courting they married in 2042. They had one child from their marriage, synthwave pop musician Asahel Hasan. After Proenike's death in a car accident in 2062, he began giving much of his fortune acquired through defense contracting and investors to the people of unsafe and unstable regions of the world, particularly those living in the Middle East as victims of war crimes, through the self-named Hasan Foundation.

In 2072 he began dating then-prominent Progressive Speaker of the House Mia Talerico, and they married in 2073. He assisted her in both campaigns for President, hyping her up at campaign stops and rallies, at which events she would refer to him as *Hayati*, an Arabic term of affection. Throughout the Helium War, despite the growing controversies of her administration, and his unwavering in standing by her, he enjoyed much popularity with the American public. After Mia's resignation he continued his philanthropic pursuits, and upon her death he reworked an unfinished manuscript of a memoir that she had begun some months prior into an autobiography and remembrance of his time in the White House and marriage to Talerico, titled *My Life, My World, My Legacy*.

Since leaving the White House, he has continued work on Bahira and plans to have the entirety of his memories and research compiled onto the system and to have it used as an educational tool for future machine learning students.