Ronny Chieng Tells Harvard Grads to Destroy AI

ronny chieng told Harvard Class Day graduates on Wednesday in Tercentenary Theatre that their generation should “destroy AI” rather than let it replace creativity and critical thinking. He urged the Class of 2026 to use artificial intelligence for research in medicine and physics, but not as a substitute for judgment or mastery.

“I’m here to tell you the mission of your generation is to destroy AI,” Chieng said, adding that overreliance on language learning models can leave users with cognitive debt, a point he tied to a 2025 MIT study titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT.”

Tercentenary Theatre remarks

Chieng, the Class Day headliner, made the remarks in Harvard’s Tercentenary Theatre as graduates marked Harvard’s 375th Commencement. He also told students, “Whatever your chosen profession is, please don’t let AI rob you of the fun part of it,” and said, “Creating is the fun part.”

That caution was aimed at future professionals who may lean on AI in fields such as medicine and physics. Chieng said Harvard’s graduates should still do the hard intellectual work themselves, including the parts that require originality and taste.

Emails, comedy, and cognitive debt

Chieng pressed the point with a simple example: email. “You know who else can do that? Me,” he said of reading and answering emails, before asking, “If you can’t do that, how useless are you?” He also said, “Why would I want AI to take that away from me?”

He connected that argument to comedy, saying, “The best part of comedy is figuring out the puzzle pieces of a joke and getting the self-regard from having accomplished a difficult thing.” For Chieng, the problem is not the tool itself but a habit of letting the tool absorb the work that gives a profession its value.

Harvard Class of 2026

The audience was the Harvard Class of 2026, and the speech folded in a broader warning about where students should invest their time. Chieng told them to make sure their offline world is better than their online world and to refrain from chasing the money, then closed with, “Follow your passion.”

Harvard’s Class Day also included a moment of silence for class member Lakota Tolloak, who died in January 2025 after a brief illness. The day’s next major milestone is Harvard’s 375th Commencement, where the class will move from ceremony to graduation itself.