Oh, sure, I wasn't saying the laws of physics were
likely to change, simply that
if they did, the SI definition of time might not be well posed.
That said, although I agree the laws of physics are likely to remain constant, 1.7 billion years is only just about 12% of the age of the Universe. And, that time period only reflects the most recent 1.7 billion years. So, there's still some theoretical wiggle room there for the fine structure constant to vary over time. After all, heat death is not expected to occur for much more 100 trillion years (if that is our ultimate fate)! [0]
Edit: Come to think of it, if the laws of physics aren't constant, how would it be possible to pose a coherent definition of a unit of time at all?
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[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_univers...