Members of the Class of 2026, distinguished guests, family, and friends:

Good morning.

I’ll start with a confession: I considered asking Claude, an AI assistant, to help write this speech. Claude and I worked on my remarks for days. But given how Commencement season has been unfolding—with all the debate over AI—I decided it would be better for me to go it alone. So, everything you hear from this point on is human intelligence. All the jokes are human jokes, so feel free to laugh. I will also accept chuckles and groans. You can’t always get an A.

Just a few months after your first year began, ChatGPT was released. The rapid rise of artificial intelligence coincided with your undergraduate years. For better and for worse, AI has been the backdrop of your Harvard experience.

Many worry that AI will make us lazy, that effort will lose its meaning. But this is hardly the first time a new technology has sparked such anxiety.

In 1903, a tethered hot air balloon appeared as a tourist attraction in the French Alps. A critic for the Pittsburgh Gazette complained that riders could reach a summit view of Mont Blanc in 10 minutes—effortlessly gazing down—while mountaineers toiled for days through snow and danger. The critic lamented that elevators, railroads, telegraphs, and balloons represented “a mania for simplification,” leaving “the indelible stamp of melancholy” on the new century.

Today, we live in an age of balloons: AI gives us answers in seconds, no grueling study required; it generates content instantly, no painstaking drafting needed. We trade the toil of the climb for the ease of flight.

Let me be clear: I do not dismiss AI’s power. There are horizons we can never reach through human effort alone.

AI can accelerate discovery and innovation, revolutionize research, and lift humanity to new heights. Like a balloon that carries us over impassable mountains, AI lets us explore landscapes too complex and vast for humans to navigate unaided.

Yet some landscapes we no longer need to explore. I can still read a slide rule and use a paper map, but calculators and GPS made those skills obsolete. That is the cost of progress: old skills fade, new tools emerge.

In the face of this change, each of us must choose: Which mountains are still worth climbing?

You alone must decide what you truly want to know, which knowledge you refuse to surrender for “push-button omniscience”.

I believe this deeply: the work of learning, struggling, and creating has irreplaceable value.

When you stay up all night to grasp a complex idea, when you fail repeatedly before solving a problem, when you craft something with care—you do more than gain knowledge. You celebrate the exquisite potential of human beings and elevate the meaning of your singular existence.

AI can give you answers, but it cannot give you the thinking, frustration, insight, and growth that come from seeking them. AI can complete tasks, but it cannot give you the pride of overcoming hardship. AI can replace labor, but it cannot replace your unique human experience and spiritual growth.

Finally, a warning: Do not let algorithms decide everything for you.

Today, AI curates your feed, serving only what you like, what you agree with, what feels familiar. Over time, you become trapped in a comfortable echo chamber, missing what might surprise, challenge, or transform you.

Stay open. Explore the unfamiliar. Listen to different voices. Embrace the unexpected. Growth happens outside your comfort zone.

Class of 2026, you stand at a turning point. AI is a tool, not a master; a helper, not a replacement.

No matter how technology changes, effort matters. Struggle has meaning.

May your journeys—with or without balloons—bring you joy and fulfillment. May you have the wisdom to embrace technology and the courage to stay true to yourselves. And may you always remember: true excellence comes from steady effort; true strength comes from an irreplaceable spirit.

Congratulations, graduates. Thank you.