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Editor’s note: This is a condensed version of the speech that the author delivered on May 30 to some 400 new graduates of Cathedral Catholic High School at Manchester Stadium on the school’s campus.
Today is a celebration of achievement, true, but it is also a moment of reflection because you are graduating into a world changing faster than perhaps any generation before you. There is so much you do not know. What should you study? What will work look like one year from now? Five years from now? What problems will your generation be asked to solve that do not even exist yet?
You are entering a world where cars drive themselves, phones recognize faces better than some relatives, refrigerators place grocery orders, and artificial intelligence can write essays, answer questions, generate videos and perhaps even explain calculus better than most adults.
Honestly, some of you are probably wondering: If AI can do everything, what is left for us? That question matters. Your generation is hearing, more and more, the subtle message that human beings are becoming less necessary. But I want you to remember that learning “how not to know” may become one of the most important human skills of all.
Because machines struggle with uncertainty. They want patterns, predictions and probabilities. But human beings can sit in mystery. We can walk through seasons where there are no clear answers and still choose courage, faith, hope and love.
AI can imitate intelligence. But it cannot imitate a soul. It can process information. But it cannot experience wonder. It can generate words about love. But it cannot love. It can analyze suffering. But it cannot sit beside someone in pain. It can simulate empathy. But it cannot sacrifice. It can produce answers, but it cannot become wise. And wisdom, real wisdom, is often born in uncertainty.
Now, don’t get me wrong, technology is a gift. AI will probably help cure diseases, improve communication, expand learning and solve problems we cannot yet imagine. But every generation faces the temptation to confuse progress with purpose. Just because we can create something powerful does not mean it should become the center of our lives.
Your generation must remember something critically important: The world does not simply need smarter people. The world needs better people. The world needs compassionate people. Courageous people. Faithful people. Hope-filled people. The world needs saints. And saints are not produced by technology.
I think one of the dangers of modern life is that we are constantly encouraged to optimize ourselves. Be faster. Be more efficient. Be more productive. Be more marketable. Be more impressive. The Gospel is not about becoming more machine-like. It is about becoming more fully alive. More fully human. And sometimes the most human moments are the least efficient ones.
A conversation with a friend who is struggling. Praying quietly when nobody sees you. Holding the hand of someone grieving. Forgiving someone who hurt you. Standing up for someone being excluded. Choosing integrity when cheating would be easier. AI cannot do those things. You can. And that matters enormously.
Now for the record, this speech, whether you liked it or not, was not written by AI. I could never trust a computer to understand or convey the depth of my conviction that our experiences and encounters on this campus are deeply human, flawed and beautiful.
Before I end, I want to offer one small piece of advice. In the years ahead, do not allow yourself to become emotionally outsourced. Do not let screens replace friendships. Do not let convenience replace commitment. Do not let distraction replace prayer. Do not let artificial connection replace real community. And please, every once in a while, put your phone down long enough to notice the world God created. Sunsets are still better in real life. Laughter still sounds better in person. Mass still matters. Silence still matters. Love still matters. And you still matter.
Class of 2026, the future does not need you to compete with machines. It is true, that there’s a lot we don’t know. It is OK to be uncertain. It is OK to not know. You don’t need to be grand to be great.
So do not be afraid of not knowing. Do not rush to eliminate every question, every doubt, every unfinished chapter in your life. Some of the most important parts of becoming fully human happen in the spaces where certainty disappears.
The world will keep changing. Technology will keep advancing. But no matter how sophisticated our machines become, they will never replace what makes you irreplaceably human: your capacity for faith, compassion, sacrifice, friendship, forgiveness, creativity and love.
So walk confidently into the unknown. Not because you have all the answers, but because you have learned how to live without them.
Calkins, Ph.D., is the president of Cathedral Catholic High School in Carmel Valley and an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame.
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