Harvard President Alan M. Garber addressed graduates and their families during the Baccalaureate Service in Tercentenary Theatre on May 26, highlighting the rapid rise of artificial intelligence during the undergraduate years of the Class of 2026. Garber said it is now up to graduates to decide how they will live with this technology.
“There will always be value in toiling laboriously to reach new levels of understanding,” Garber said. “When you do so, you do more than celebrate the exquisite potential of human beings; you elevate the meaning of your singular existence.”
Garber referenced November 2022, when ChatGPT was released just months after members of the Class of 2026 began at Harvard, launching new scientific advances and concerns about job losses and human labor. He compared current anxieties over artificial intelligence to historical worries about technological change, citing a 1903 Pittsburgh Gazette opinion piece that lamented tourists using balloons instead of climbing mountains. “We live today in an age of balloons, gaining perspectives in fractions of seconds rather than tens of minutes, dispensing with the toil of the climb in favor of the ease of flight,” he said. While acknowledging that some landscapes may only be reached by balloon—representing complex problems suited for AI—Garber emphasized personal responsibility: “You alone will have to determine what it is that you want to know, which knowledge you are not willing to relinquish for the promise of push-button omniscience,” he said. “Effort still matters.”
The Baccalaureate Service continues a tradition dating back to Harvard’s first Commencement in 1642 and features readings from various faith traditions as well as remarks from university clergy and students. Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts told graduates, “If you are here today, it is because you are descended from generations…who have survived deprivations or immigrations or persecutions or liberations, just so you could sit here this day…You are your ancestors’ dreams come true.” Rabbi Jason Rubenstein also spoke about honoring those who came before and becoming inspiration for future generations.
Rev. Monica Sanford reminded students: “In their happiness we find our own, for in their freedom we find our freedom…For those who are happy and free harm none and wish only to help others find happiness and freedom.”
In closing his address, Garber urged graduates to approach their futures with open eyes: “May the future be as kind to you as all of you are to each other.”
