After public outrage, California lawmakers are moving closer to exempting open-source operating systems from the sweeping age-bracketing regime mandated by last year’s Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043). Nonetheless, the current bill still jeopardizes internet users’ speech, privacy, and security.

While the open source exemption, if passed, would improve the law, the remaining amendments proposed by AB 1856 would require all web browsers and websites to request and collect users’ ages. This is an expansion of last year's AB 1043's age-bracketing system that compounds its constitutional harms to users’ speech, privacy, and security. As AB 1856 moves on to the Senate, EFF will continue fighting for amendments that reduce those harms.

AB 1856 Extends AB 1043’s Age-Gating Regime

Last year, California passed AB 1043, which requires all operating systems and app stores to create age-bracketing systems that segment users based on their ages. As we’ve written, that regime is a recipe for censorship: it creates unnecessary and unconstitutional barriers to accessing lawful online speech, threatens our right to anonymity, and pressures online services to collect troves of valuable and sensitive user data. On top of that, A.B. 1043’s wide-sweeping compliance burdens impose disproportionate harms on the open-source ecosystem that underpins much of the modern web. 

Given these flaws, lawmakers introduced AB 1856 this year as a supposed “clean-up” bill for AB 1043. But instead of sticking to fixing AB 1043’s unique and serious harms (like its impact on open-source operating systems), AB 1856 also expanded the regime even further—extending its age-bracketing requirements beyond operating systems and app stores to browsers and websites. 

EFF opposed AB 1856 on two grounds, which we explained in our opposition letter to the Assembly: 

1. The harms that age-gating regimes pose to users’ speech, privacy, and anonymity; and
2. The disproportionate harms that this particular regime imposes on open-source developers. 

Open Source Concerns Somewhat Alleviated By Amendment

On May 28th, AB 1856 passed the Assembly in a nearly unanimous vote (68-1). 

Before that vote, however, AB 1856 was amended to relieve the compliance burden on open-source operating systems. This is a meaningful improvement and a welcome relief for open-source developers, who have been loud and clear about how much of an existential threat A.B. 1043’s age-gating mandate would pose.

The new exception reads:

“Operating system provider” does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.”

EFF understands this amendment to exempt open-source operating systems from the requirement to collect and transmit users’ age-bracket data. That is a definite win for open-source developers. The bill is narrower now than it was before, and lawmakers clearly responded to concerns raised by EFF and the broader open-source community. 

Some important questions still remain—for example, it is unclear how the law would apply when an open-source operating system is incorporated into a commercial product or service. And, given the structure of where the exemption is placed under the “operating system provider” definition, lawmakers could stand to clarify that the exemption applies to open-source operating systems and applications.

Nonetheless, that ambiguity aside, this amendment does substantially reduce the threat that AB 1043 could have on many open-source developers. 

AB 1856 Still Expands the Problematic Age-Bracketing Regime

Don’t get us wrong—if this bill passes, we will be very happy that AB 1043 does not pose nearly the amount of harm to our friends behind open-source operating systems. But even after these amendments, EFF remains opposed to AB 1856 because it ultimately expands California’s sweeping age-bracketing framework far beyond the original scope of AB 1043. 

In AB 1856 and its amendments, the Assembly failed to address the core problem with AB 1043’s age-bracketing regime: mandated age-gating systems threaten users’ speech, privacy, anonymity, and security. 

Even after these amendments, EFF remains opposed to AB 1856 because it ultimately expands California’s sweeping age-bracketing framework far beyond the original scope of AB 1043. 

Even though AB 1043 does not explicitly require companies to perform age verification, it nonetheless imposes a liability structure that strongly pressures companies to verify users’ ages anyway. In practice, that could lead to more ID checks, more biometric scanning, more invasive data collection and risk of breach, and more barriers to adults’ and young people’s lawful speech.

In fact, instead of narrowing AB 1043’s wide net, AB 1856 expanded it to add browser providers and website operators to the list of entities that must comply with its age-bracketing requirements. This dramatically broadens the scope of AB 1043 and pulls more services, developers, and users into an anonymity- and privacy-destroying data collection framework that has not yet been implemented or evaluated. The result would make it nearly impossible for regular internet users to avoid AB 1043’s age gates.

The Fight Moves to the Senate

On those grounds, EFF will continue to oppose AB 1856. Though it has passed the Assembly, the fight is not over. As the bill moves through the Senate, we’ll continue to push for amendments that actually “clean up” and narrow the scope of AB 1043, and offer more protection to users from the harms of age-gating systems.

Cheered on by the greater MIT community, members of the Class of 2026 were honored this week for the hard work that earned them their newly minted MIT degrees.

The 2026 Commencement celebrations spanned three days filled with degree ceremonies, receptions, and reunions, at locations spread across campus. The weather ranged widely, but spirits remained high even as Wednesday’s sunny, selfie-perfect weather gave way to some rain later in the week.

Advanced Micro Devices chair and CEO Lisa Su ’90, SM ’91, PhD ’94 gave the Commencement address at the OneMIT ceremony for all graduates, held Thursday. Undergraduates crossed the stage during their own ceremony on Friday, and throughout the three-day celebration, MIT’s five schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing each held ceremonies to recognize their graduate students. Friday also kicked off a weekend of Tech Reunions.

As Institute Professor and School of Engineering Dean Paula Hammond told graduate students earning degrees from her school and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, “What makes MIT special isn’t just what happens underneath this dome. What makes MIT special is you.”

The following photo essay provides a snapshot of MIT Commencement activities throughout the week. (Additional recaps/photo collections are available for the School of Architecture and Planning, School of Engineering/MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, and School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences).

What distinguishes the MIT School of Architecture and Planning’s Class of 2026? According to faculty and staff across the school, it’s their hearts.

“They’re big-hearted in the way they deal with each other, with their work, and with the world,” said Hashim Sarkis, dean of SA+P, in his opening remarks at the school’s 2026 Advanced Degree Ceremony. As a nod to the class’s generosity, Sarkis announced the creation of the Class of 2026 Scholarship fund to help support incoming students.

“Education is a right, not a privilege, and this fellowship brings us closer to our goal of giving this right to every student and becoming tuition-free as a school,” said Sarkis.

The news was met with joyful and sustained applause.

The SA+P Class of 2026 represents graduates from each of the school’s departments: Architecture; Urban Studies and Planning; Media Arts and Sciences (MIT Media Lab); and the Center for Real Estate. The 206 graduates — including six with dual degrees — represent nearly every corner of the globe. Fifty-seven percent are from the United States, 10 percent are from China, and 5 percent are from India.

This year’s speaker was Alejandro Aravena, a celebrated Chilean architect whose credits include curating the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale “Reporting From the Front,” and being awarded the Pritzker Prize (2016), the most prestigious award in architecture — for which he currently serves as jury chair. Aravena leads the architectural firm ELEMENTAL, based in Santiago, Chile, with work that spans a variety of public and private projects developing novel approaches to community engagement shaping how architects and policymakers think about the built environment.

Sarkis said Aravena speaks eloquently to the breadth of fields represented in SA+P, and to the school’s values, “[from] the power of architecture and design to enable society to his innovative models of social housing to creative approaches to community engagement — be it in emergency planning after earthquakes, or in institutional buildings — and to putting architecture front and center in the discussions around the new constitution of Chile.” 

Addressing the students and their guests, Aravena shared a series of vignettes that illustrated a world at a “tipping point.” Will it land on the side of civilization, or barbarism?, he asked. One story was of his firm’s work on a project in Chile where his team encountered the “law of the jungle.” During a slum-upgrading project, two social workers from the Ministry of Housing were stalked on their way home by hired killers. With knives at their throats, they were warned never to return if they intended to interfere with the territorial power of organized crime. The message was clear: Come back, and your families will pay the price, he said. A more recent project — building a hospital for victims of sexual violence linked to the armed conflict in Colombia — had the architects questioning the level of violence that people inflict on each other.

If the “law of the jungle” was going to be the new normal, Aravena said, he needed to understand what that meant. Measuring the sizes of a prefrontal cortex — the brain’s command center that controls emotions, complex decision-making, and executive function — within the animal kingdom, humans have the largest capacity for emotions and behaviors.

“The history of humanity and the evolution of the human condition is connected,” he said. “It’s moving in the direction of the prefrontal cortex. Yet, somehow, we’re turning backwards.”

Aravena suggested the students use their newly acquired skills to work on projects that matter to others, and not to just themselves.  

“Leveling the playing field, having more people behaving and coexisting in a more even playground, is very bad news for predators,” said Aravena. “Try to use this knowledge and wisdom you have and the training you have received in common interests, and not in just the self. Let’s try to bring back decency. Let’s try to bring back kindness. Let’s try to bring back honoring the truth. And let’s join forces to make the coin fall on the most human possible side.

“Class of 2026, together, let’s make the prefrontal cortex great again,” Aravena concluded. 

“I’m originally from Moorestown, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia. While my degree is in chemical engineering, I consider myself a materials scientist, and I’m passionate about using innovative materials to propel next-generation technologies. When I started my bachelor’s degree at Cornell University, I was introduced to polymers and nanotechnology and even got to partake in some meaningful industry experiences in the medical device field. While the work I did felt impactful, I felt like I lacked a sense of driving innovation, and so I decided to pursue a PhD at MIT.

My doctorate in Michael Strano’s lab has focused on a novel material at the intersection of polymers and nanomaterials. This material, called 2DPA-1, is like a combination of graphene, the strongest and most conductive material, with Kevlar, which is what makes up bulletproof vests. My thesis has been pivotal in establishing the characterization tools for this material so that future researchers can optimize its properties for different applications. Going forward, I’ve signed an offer letter with a startup that is making portable nuclear reactors for areas without stable grid electricity. I’ll work on various problems surrounding the materials that make up the reactors. 

I always knew that I wanted my dog, Vinny, to have a doctoral gown for graduation. He’s been with me throughout my entire PhD and has been a pivotal member of my research group, helping everyone by being cute and reducing their stress. I couldn’t find any specific vendors online, and I love learning crafts to make custom items (crochet, knitting, and embroidery to make my own clothes; bookbinding to make my own journals and my physical thesis; and pottery to make my own mugs and dishes), so I thought: Why not try to sew a gown for him? I watched and read a few tutorials, used the sewing machines at Metropolis, and hand-sewed the finishing touches. I’m a bit of a perfectionist and could keep working on it, but I know that Vinny looks cute regardless of what he wears. I am so delighted and grateful that Vinny was part of my ceremony. He’s been such a pivotal part of my PhD journey, and my life as a whole. I can’t imagine a finer end to my time at MIT!” 

—Michelle Quien PhD ’26, graduate of the Department of Chemical Engineering

Younger Americans have soured on the second Donald Trump presidency, but they are not protesting it.

Despite an unpopular Iran war and an even more unpopular Trump administration, college campus protests nationwide have gone silent. And at many schools, student activism is virtually nonexistent.

This silence comes in the wake of a relentless Trump administration war on campus speech that has involved lawsuits, arrests, deportations and expulsions.

Reports cite a range of complicated factors for the restraint, from apathy to technology-induced incapacity. But as ...

New Bedford, Massachusetts, is ground zero for America’s wind industry.

The agency’s workforce has shrunk by almost 20 percent under President Donald Trump.

As Republicans investigate a legal education organization, one law firm points out that oil and gas lawyers serve on organizations' board of directors and help it raise money.

George David Banks and Greg Bertelsen support fees on polluting imports.

The measure includes regulations supported by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, but it also targets the state’s 2050 climate goal.

Sherrill is looking to give developers more time by moving the compliance date to next summer.

The vote is a shot across the bow at the Newsom administration.

The bloc’s dependence on foreign oil and gas is a defense liability, Wopke Hoekstra and Andrius Kubilius say.

Fossil fuel sector claimed the rules would lead to energy shortages, something green groups refute.

The shift is visible in a $1.5 billion energy agreement between China and Zambia announced in early May.

Unseasonably hot weather has seen temperatures soar far beyond normal for late May in the French capital on several days of the tournament so far.

After years of study and instruction, MIT’s Class of 2026 received one last piece of guidance this afternoon en route to picking up their diplomas and starting the next chapter of their lives.

“Run toward the hardest problems,” said Lisa Su ’90, SM ’91, PhD ’94, the chair and CEO of semiconductor powerhose Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and the featured Commencement speaker at today’s OneMIT ceremony. “Hard problems really teach you what you’re capable of.”

Su’s career as one of the world’s leading technology executives has long been intertwined with MIT. She holds three degrees in electrical engineering from the Institute, along with another distinction: Building 12, home of the MIT.nano facility, was named after her in 2022. 

A central theme of Su’s address involved learning by taking on difficult challenges. At MIT, as she put it, she acquired “not the confidence that I would always know the answer, but the confidence that even when I didn’t know the answer, I could figure it out.”

Speaking before a large and appreciative audience in MIT’s Killian Court, Su also urged MIT’s new class of graduates to lead purposeful lives, with a sense of the greater good and an eye toward addressing societal challenges. 

“The world does not just need people who know how to use powerful tools,” Su said. “It needs people who know what to use them for. People with a sense of purpose. Judgment. Courage.”

Science: Curiosity on a Mission

The OneMIT ceremony is an Institute-wide Commencement event with a featured speaker and other traditional elements. MIT’s Commencement week also includes specific ceremonies in which undergraduates, and graduate students in the Institute’s five schools and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, walk across stage to receive their diplomas. 

After Su spoke, MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth delivered a charge to the graduates, discussing the Institute’s core values, especially the ideas of excellence and curiosity. She also emphasized MIT’s role in making advances that benefit the nation and society at large, from medicine to energy, agriculture, and other areas of need. 

“A few of those values that will serve you wherever you go,” Kornbluth observed, while noting MIT’s commitment to “the highest standards of intellectual and creative excellence” in its work. She observed that the Institute lives this ethos, by spurning legacy admissions and “back-door” admissions for donors’ families, among other merit-based practices.

“MIT is custom-made for people whose curiosity never sleeps,” Kornbluth said, offering that “curiosity is also our intellectual rocket fuel — and that fact is enormously important for our society as a whole.”

She added: “At MIT, we know that curiosity-driven science is the path to new knowledge,” Kornbluth said. “The kind that spawns world-changing innovations. Curiosity is the force that transforms deadly cancers into treatable conditions. That turns fusion energy from a dream to a reality. That uncovers new ways to grow more food using less of every resource.”

Indeed, Kornbluth emphasized, “We like to say that science is curiosity on a mission.”

“The responsibility to work with others”

MIT students earned a total of 1,165 undergraduate and 2,817 graduate degrees this academic year. 

The OneMIT ceremony began with the annual alumni parade, which has come to feature graduates from the 50th anniversary class. In this case the undergraduate class of 1976 had the honors, entering with processional entry music from the Killian Court Brass Ensemble, conducted by Kenneth Amis. 

In another annual component of the OneMIT ceremony, Thea Keith-Lucas, the Chaplain to the Institute, delivered the invocation. The Chorallaries of MIT sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at the outset of the event. Near the conclusion, they sang the school song, “In praise of MIT,” and another Institute anthem, “Take Me Back to Tech.”

By tradition, speakers at the OneMIT event also included Teddy Warner, president of MIT’s Graduate Student Council, and Heba Hussein, president of the undergraduate class of 2026.

“As MIT graduates, we have the responsibility to work with others to generate, disseminate, and preserve knowledge to bear on the world’s greatest challenges,” Warner said. “We cannot solve global problems without global cooperation or with limited techniques. I implore everyone to apply the cooperative, interdisciplinary skills used every day at MIT to effect positive change in all areas of the global community.”

In her speech, Hussein reflected on the many ways her classmates supported each other during their time at MIT. “As we move forward, I urge you to continue to carry care,” Hussein said. “Care for our work, for each other, and for the people far beyond MIT whose lives are connected by what we choose to do.

Following the students’ remarks, Stephen DeFalco ’83, SM ’88, president of the MIT Alumni Association, issued a welcome to the new graduates. 

MIT: “Where I really learned to solve problems”

For her part, Su recounted that when she first came to campus, she was “pretty sure I was good at math.” Then, drawing laughs from the audience, she recalled stepping into two MIT first-year courses, 6.001 and 6.002. 

“Within about two weeks, I realized there were a lot of people at MIT who were very, very good at math,” Su said. 

She stuck with it, and, as she told the crowd today, “Along the way, I started believing in myself. … What I realize now is that MIT was teaching me something much bigger than semiconductor device physics.” Referring to MIT’s enduring motto of “mens et manus,” or “mind and hand,” Su underscored the importance of both thinking through problems and working to solve them in practical terms. 

“When I was a student, I thought it was just a motto,” Su said. “Now I think it captures exactly what makes MIT so special. MIT teaches you to think deeply. But it also teaches you to build. To test ideas. To keep going when the first experiment — or even the fifth experiment — doesn’t work. And over time, you start believing that you can solve problems that once felt impossible. I carried that feeling with me long after I left campus.”

Su’s remarks specifically credited the mentorship of MIT electrical engineer Dimitri Antoniadis, one of her PhD advisors, who today is the Ray and Maria Stata Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in whose lab she worked as a doctoral candidate. 

“That was where I really learned how to solve problems,” Su said. 

After receiving her PhD from MIT, Su worked at Texas Instruments; IBM; and Freescale Semiconductor. In 2012, she joined AMD, which she has helped revitalize as a global leader in the semiconductor space. In 2014, she was named president and CEO of the company. Under her guidance, AMD has both grown and diversified its products, with expanding reach in high-performance computing, among other areas. 

Su has received many awards and honors in her career, including the IEEE’s Robert Noyce Medal in 2021; she was the first woman to be awarded the honor. 

In her remarks, Su referenced the many technology advances of recent decades, and noted the potential for new changes due to artificial intelligence. Su outlined her hope that AI can “accelerate discovery in every field,” including medicine and health care, suggesting it could help assemble more information than ever in valuable ways.

“This I think is the promise of AI at its best,” Su said. “It makes each of us more capable. Medicine. Science. Energy. Climate.”

At the same time, Su observed, “Technology itself does not decide what the future looks like.” Rather, she noted, people do: “For everything AI can do, AI cannot decide which problems are worth solving. It can’t make the hard judgments when the data is not there. It can’t take responsibility for the outcome. These are actually our responsibilities. And they matter more now than ever.”

“The commitment to act ethically”

In her charge to the graduates, Kornbluth also encouraged the MIT class of 2026 to  apply their knowledge and skills in socially beneficial, responsible ways.

“I mentioned excellence and curiosity, two of MIT’s core values,” Kornbluth said. “But I hope we also hold, together, another core value: the commitment to always act ethically, with integrity, and with consideration for our fellow human beings.”

She added: “I have no doubt that … with your uncommon talent, you can do it! And if you keep that goal in sight, I know you will do great things for the world. Congratulations — and warmest best wishes to all of you for a happy life and a fulfilling career.”

Below is the text of Lisa Su’s Commencement remarks, as prepared for delivery today.

Good afternoon.

President Kornbluth, Chairman Gorenberg, trustees, faculty, families, friends … and most importantly, the MIT Class of 2026.

Congratulations.

You earned this. 

Standing here feels different than I expected.

I've given a lot of talks over the years … but this one is personal. And as Murphy’s Law would have it, I somehow managed to lose my voice this week … so please bear with me if my voice sounds a little rough.

I came to MIT in the fall of 1986. My parents dropped me off at Next House. I was 17 years old. Born in Taiwan, raised in Queens … and pretty sure I was good at math.

Then I walked into 6.001 and 6.002.

Within about two weeks, I realized there were a lot of people at MIT who were very, very good at math.

I remember staring at those first problem sets thinking … man, these are super hard.

I had never really pulled all-nighters until freshman year …  it was a new experience, but it was a lot of fun doing it together with your classmates. 

MIT has this incredible way of pushing you further than you thought you could go.

You wrestled with the problem.

You blew up a circuit or two.

And then, somehow … the thing worked.

And suddenly, you realized you could build something real.

And, that’s when I started feeling like an engineer.

One of the best parts of MIT is UROP.

The opportunity, as an undergraduate, to work on real research.

That changed my life.

My first UROP was in Professor Hank Smith’s lab in Building 39 … making X-ray lithography mask blanks for a graduate student.

To be clear, at the time I had absolutely no idea what that actually meant.

But I got to put on my first bunny suit, walk into the clean room, and start building devices on little 2-inch wafers.

I learned very quickly to be careful because those wafers were delicate, and I definitely did not want to be responsible for breaking them.

I ran a bunch of experiments. Most of them didn’t work the way we expected. So, we adjusted. And tried again.

It was the coolest thing ever.

For the first time, I wasn’t just learning about technology in a classroom. I was part of a team trying to discover something new.

I remember thinking: wow, we can build things this small?

Things tiny enough to fit on a die the size of a coin … but powerful enough to change the world.

And that is when I fell in love with semiconductors.

Later, I had the privilege of working with Professor Dimitri Antoniadis, who became my PhD advisor.

That was where I really learned how to solve problems.

I remember spending weeks in the clean room fabricating devices, then bringing my wafers up to the test lab, only to discover they didn’t behave the way I expected at all.

So, I’d go back to Dimitri’s office, and we’d figure out what experiment we should try next.

Looking back, that was probably where I grew the most at MIT.

Because little by little, I went from a new grad student learning about the field…to someone doing original research and actually contributing something new to the field. 

And along the way, I started believing in myself.

Not the confidence that I would always know the answer.

But the confidence that even when I didn’t know the answer yet…I could figure it out. 

What I realize now is that MIT was teaching me something much bigger than semiconductor physics.

Mens et manus.

Mind and hand.

When I was a student, I thought it was just a motto.

Now I think it captures exactly what makes MIT special.

MIT teaches you to think deeply.

But it also teaches you to build.

To test ideas.

To keep going when the first experiment — or even the fifth experiment — doesn’t work.

And over time, you start believing you can solve problems that once felt impossible.

I carried that feeling with me long after I left campus.

When I joined IBM, I found myself starting all over again.

IBM had hundreds of thousands of employees. I was 25 years old wondering how I could possibly make a difference in a company that big.

But I learned something important very quickly: engineering doesn’t care how old you are.

It cares whether your ideas work.

And one of my mentors told me something that I’ve never forgotten:   

Run toward the hardest problems.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what that meant. 

But over time, I realized this was the best advice I ever received.

Hard problems teach you what you're capable of. 

Fast forward a bit … 12 years ago, I got a chance to put that lesson to the test.

I had the opportunity to become CEO of AMD.

AMD had enormous potential, but the company had been through some tough years.

Some of my mentors thought taking the job was risky.

But for me, this was my dream job.

This was what I’d been training for all those years.

The opportunity to work at the bleeding edge of technology on problems that really mattered.

The first thing we had to figure out was what we wanted to be when we grew up.

We made a long-term bet that high-performance computing would be the most important technology of the future.

We gave our talented team the room to think big. 

Over the next several years, we built technology to enable the most powerful computers in the world.

And, through all of it, I used every skill that MIT ever taught me … And then some. 

I call it the engineer’s instinct. 

The ability to face what seemed like an unsolvable problem, break it down, and methodically work through it step by step.

But, at AMD, I learned something else. 

The engineer’s instinct is even more powerful when it becomes shared by a team. 

And the greatest satisfaction of my career has been bringing people together to do something more than any of us thought was possible.

Which brings me to today.

Over the last few decades, we’ve experienced several major technology shifts.

The internet changed how we communicate.

Mobile computing changed how we live.

Cloud computing changed how we work.

And now we are at the beginning of the AI wave.

To me, AI is different from those earlier technology waves. 

It is not just a tool that can help us do things faster. It is deeper than that. 

It has the potential to accelerate discovery in every field and help us solve problems we have never been able to solve before.

To make it personal, one of the areas that excites me most is medicine and healthcare. 

We’ve all experienced firsthand what it feels like when someone you love is sick.

And even with incredible doctors and the best care, you realize how hard it is for any one person to bring together all of the knowledge that exists in the world to help in that critical time of need. 

AI can help us change that. 

It can help doctors and researchers bring the world’s best expertise to each patient … and deliver care with the best chance of a successful outcome.

That is the promise of AI at its best.

It does not replace people.

It makes each of us more capable.

Medicine. 

Science. 

Energy. 

Climate. 

We may discover more in the next ten years than we have in the last thirty.

Now let me be clear. 

Technology itself does not decide what the future looks like. 

People do.

For all the promise of AI …

AI cannot decide which problems are worth solving.

It cannot make the hard judgment calls with imperfect information.

It cannot take responsibility for the outcome.

These are our responsibilities.

And they matter more now than ever. 

That is why this is such an extraordinary moment to graduate from MIT.

Because the world does not just need people who know how to use powerful tools.

It needs people who know what to use them for.

People with a sense of purpose. 

Judgment.

Courage. 

People who look at a hard problem and say: I know this is important, and we can figure this out.

And that is exactly who you have become here. 

So here is what I want to leave you with.

I am fortunate in many ways.

I am fortunate to have great parents.

I received an extraordinary education.

I have had the chance to work with great people.

But I also believe I’ve been very lucky in my career.

When people ask me for career advice, I often tell them: work hard … but also understand that luck matters.

And, over time, I’ve come to believe that the best people find ways to make their luck.

Luck is not just being in the right place at the right time.

It is taking the risk to work on something hard. 

It is challenging yourself.

Choosing problems at the edge of what you know.

Surrounding yourself with people who make you better.

And believing that, yes … you can change the world.

So be ambitious about the problems you choose.

Run toward the hardest ones.

And trust your engineer’s instinct.

That is how you make your luck. 

I want to take a moment to acknowledge all the families and loved ones here in the audience today.

None of these graduates got here alone.

Thank you for believing in them, supporting them, and helping them reach this moment. 

This achievement belongs to you too. 

And to the Class of 2026…

Remember … somewhere in the years ahead, you’re going to walk into another room where you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.

You’ve done this before.

Go figure it out.

As one MITer to another … I am incredibly honored to be here with you today.

Congratulations, Class of 2026.

On May 28, MIT President Sally Kornbluth and Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey announced plans for a new laboratory to accelerate the development of next-generation quantum technologies that will enable Massachusetts to remain a national hub for quantum innovation.

Speaking at the Samberg Conference Center on campus, the leaders introduced the Quantum Systems Laboratory (QSL) at MIT, a shared-use facility that will catalyze quantum development in the region and help keep America at the forefront of a technology seen as critical for a range of industries.

“Quantum technologies have the potential to drive transformative change in fields from computing, security, and navigation to health sciences, defense technologies, and space exploration,” Kornbluth said. “Greater Boston has the greatest concentration of quantum talent of anywhere in the world, so it has been clear to us for some time that if we could magnify all of that talent with the right facilities — a shared quantum toolbox — we could establish Massachusetts as a national hub for quantum innovation and help catalyze the next generation of quantum technologies.”

The Quantum Systems Laboratory will join a state-of-the-art quantum computer with the components needed to make it a scalable, practical technology for solving complex, real-world problems. Such components include peripheral hardware such as sensors and quantum interconnects, which are physical channels that transfer quantum information. Located at MIT’s Building 39, the facilities will be open to researchers both from and beyond MIT. 

Thanks to a $25 million investment from the state, announced today, which will match a portion of the federal funding for quantum research already underway at MIT, the Institute is now in a position to move forward as early as this summer with construction on the QSL facility. The Commonwealth’s investment adds to MIT’s own financial commitment, as well as generous philanthropic support from Thomas Tull.

“This is good news for MIT, good news for Massachusetts, and frankly, good news for the world that we’re working together to make this happen,” Healey said. “The return on investment is clear: We know the Quantum Systems Laboratory will be a first-of-its-kind center for the shared study and development of quantum science and technology. It’s going to unleash the great power of scientists and innovators from around the state and across the world, and also be a place for collaboration, both for academic and commercial ventures. It will offer incredible opportunities for both scientific progress and economic growth. It’s a testament to MIT’s unrelenting, unyielding belief in the power of openness and collaboration to advance science.”

The new lab will be the physical home for the MIT Quantum Initiative (or QMIT) announced by President Kornbluth in December. It also complements advanced facilities already used for quantum research at MIT, such as MIT.nano and MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s SQUILL foundry, both of which share the mission of democratizing access to world-class facilities. SQUILL and MIT.nano have already made a major impact on the quantum industry through research, startups, and new standards for creating and transmitting quantum information.

“I want to emphasize that just as MIT.nano is a facility for all, there will be many people from beyond MIT that come to use this equipment” at QSL, Kornbluth said. “This is a hub to make Massachusetts the center of the world for quantum. These resources are rare enough that we have to make sure they are available to our colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Harvard, and beyond. Our plan is to mobilize all the talent in the area through this facility.”

Leading in quantum innovation is important for the prosperity and security of the country, but quantum research requires meticulously controlled environments. The new facilities will give scientists access to the cutting-edge quantum hardware and specialized experimental capabilities needed to achieve the full transformative potential of quantum science and engineering.

The new laboratory’s underlying mission is to return broad scientific, workforce, and economic benefit to the public.

For example, quantum technologies provide significant opportunities in the fields of life sciences and defense technologies, which are $50-billion contributors to the local economy, with dozens of startups working in the area. The new lab is designed to create new job opportunities in the form of academic research, startups, and more. Construction on the QSL facility alone is anticipated to create over 150 full-time, on-site jobs, plus another 75 to 100 jobs across the Commonwealth in supply chain and professional services supporting the project.

Startups from MIT are also a key driver of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem; in 2015, Sloan Professors Edward Roberts and Fiona Murray published a report detailing how the Institute’s alumni entrepreneurs have created more than 30,000 active companies, employing 4.6 million people and generating annual global revenues of $1.9 trillion, a figure greater than the gross domestic product (GDP) of the world’s 10th-largest economy, as of 2014. The QSL facility will provide the necessary equipment and facilities for startups working on quantum technologies, thereby strengthening the region’s innovation economy. 

Below is the text of President Sally Kornbluth’s Commencement remarks, as prepared for delivery today.

Technically, as MIT’s president, it’s now my job to deliver a “charge” to the graduates. 

But this year, I faced that assignment with a serious case of humility. You’re entering a world that I’m certain you’ll navigate better than I could.

So, for your “charge,” I decided to draw on a special resource: the collective wisdom of our alumni.

I talk with a lot of MIT graduates — around the world, across the country, on our faculty.

They each put it their own way. But nearly all of them talk about how MIT changed their lives. It wasn’t a subject they studied, or a skill they acquired. It was the whole MIT experience! Of living and working here, together, and of belonging to a community with our distinctive passions and values.

So, as you go out into the world, I want to emphasize a few of those values that will serve you wherever you go. The banners in Lobby 7 feature our whole MIT Values Statement.  Let’s focus first on the two words at the top: Excellence and Curiosity.

Now, “excellence” is an easy thing to say. Most companies claim it. Probably every university too. But I have never seen a community live its commitment to excellence the way it’s done at MIT.

It’s easy to measure in the outward accomplishments of our faculty and graduates: the prizes, the discoveries, the inventions. The architecture and the industries. The companies and cures. 

But you also feel it here, every day — when everyone you meet in the hallway wants to tell you about what they’re working on – and it just blows you away. 

As members of this community, we strive to hold ourselves to “the highest standards of intellectual and creative excellence.” Just as important, we inspire each other to reach for those standards too!

(As one timely metaphor: This week 400 of you apparently felt that earning a degree from MIT wasn’t hard enough – so you also had to jump out of a plane!)

As an institution, we support these standards of individual excellence with a systematic focus on merit. For instance: No legacy admissions. No back-door admissions for donors. 
Because we value “potential over pedigree.”

A long-ago colleague had a sign in his office. It said, “If you take a lick of the lollipop of mediocrity, you will suck forever.” 

Now, let me be clear — I’m talking about self-discipline, not self-regard.

In the work we do, a conscious commitment to excellence is not the same as arrogance. 

In fact, it’s kind of the opposite.

The American poet Walt Whitman captured this idea. As he wrote, 

“I like the scientific spirit — the holding off, the being sure, but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: This … keeps the way beyond open [and] … gives the whole man a chance to try over again.”

So I hope, wherever your life and work lead you, that you’ll strive to sustain our MIT standards of excellence. 

And I also hope, in the spirit of Whitman, that you’ll “accept the risk of failing as a rung on the ladder of growth.” Because, in all the fields you’ve studied, the willingness to try, and fail, and try again is the golden path to breakthroughs!

Now, for curiosity.

A few months ago, I was interviewed by a journalist who understands the current challenges for higher education. 

He described me as “inexplicably ebullient.”

(He doesn’t see me every day!) 

But honestly, if I’m ebullient in leading this community, it’s entirely explicable! 

MIT is custom-made for people whose curiosity never sleeps. Which describes our faculty, our staff, our alumni — and every one of you.

Feeding that curiosity is an incredible source of pleasure. You don’t need me to encourage you in this life-long feast!

But I do hope I can count on you to help the world understand that curiosity is also our intellectual rocket fuel — and that this fact is enormously important for our society as a whole.

At MIT, we know that curiosity-driven science is the path to new knowledge – the kind that spawns world-changing innovations. 

Curiosity is the force that transforms deadly cancers into treatable conditions, that turns fusion energy from a dream to a reality, that uncovers new ways to grow more food using less of every resource. 

We like to say that science is curiosity on a mission.

But we also know that the “curious” path to those deep discoveries can look like a wandering road.
 
(Years ago, after a long conversation about my PhD work, my own grandmother once asked, “Wait, you’re not trying to cure cancer in humans, you’re trying to give it to chickens?”)

Luckily, over eight decades, the United States had the foresight to see the value of discovery science. It invested public money with steady patience, knowing that the “practical payoff” could be 20, 30, 40 years away. 

Today – as many of you know from experience in your own labs — US investment in curiosity-driven science is in sharp decline. 

The tragedy here is that shrinking the pipeline of basic discovery research means choking off the flow of future solutions, innovations and cures – and shrinking the supply of future scientists.

So I hope you will join in a great shared effort to sustain the work of scientific curiosity — on a mission to serve.

A final thought: Every one of you here possesses uncommon talent. And with great talent comes great responsibility. 

I have no doubt that, like our alumni, you will be top-flight performers in your fields: Innovators. Engineers. Scientists. Doctors and designers. Entrepreneurs, investors and astronauts. Pioneers in whatever realm you chose. 

I mentioned Excellence and Curiosity, two of MIT's core values. 

But I hope we also hold, together, another core value — the commitment to always act ethically, with integrity, and with consideration for our fellow human beings. 

After more than six decades on Earth, I know that living up to this standard requires constant reinforcement and awareness! You will face many temptations, and opportunities to lose focus on that north star. 

And you simply have to resist. 

I have no doubt that, with your uncommon talent, you can do it!

And if you keep that goal in sight, I know you will do great things for the world. 

Congratulations — and warmest best wishes to you for a happy life and fulfilling career!