Commencement Address from Dr. Scott Carpenter - June 7, 2025

One month ago, the New York Times Magazine published a story entitled “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College.” Technological advances in AI, seen in ChatGPT and other platforms, are rapidly changing what it means to learn, work, and intellectually grow today. Whether your next stop along your journey is college, the military, or entering the workforce, the artificial intelligence that was only science fiction 40 years ago when I graduated from high school is now your reality – and your future.

In high school, I didn’t have a Chromebook, the internet, Google, or ChatGPT. I had to go to the library and do research for papers by reading books. I had to write those papers on my own, without prompts from AI, and I was required to use a typewriter – and I needed a lot of white-out to cover up my keystroke mistakes. I hated my typewriter. 

High tech advancements in the 1980s came in the form of a Texas Instruments TI-30 calculator. When the TI-30 came out, complex calculations were made quicker and less daunting. I cynically began to question the value of memorizing multiplication tables or Pi to the 5th decimal place, because that information was now just a couple of clicks away.

My first year of college was when Macintosh computers were introduced – with the first with a graphical interface and mouse. From the first time I used a Mac in the Biology lab I worked in, I knew that a computer was going to be part of my life from that moment forward. I used it to log and analyze data, write reports, and print out my findings. Sure, I could have kept my data in handwritten logs, crunched the numbers on my TI-30 calculator, and painstakingly produced typewritten reports, but using the computer to do this was infinitely easier, more efficient, and more accurate. I still remember the day when I bought my first Mac – it was the same day that I threw out my typewriter. 

With each technological advance I’ve seen, in the back of my mind was a cautionary tale from a short story written by Isaac Asimov called “The Feeling of Power.” It is a tale of a future where mankind has grown so dependent upon computers that humans have forgotten how to think for themselves, including doing the most simple math. A man named Aub was the last person on earth who knew how to do mathematical calculations. When word of Aub’s unique ability got out, he was interrogated by government officials. The first question he was asked was, “How much is 9 times 7?” Aub paused and responded “63.” To check Aub’s answer, someone pulled out a small pocket-sized computer, punched in 9 times 7, and exclaimed that he was right. Aub goes on to teach others how to do all kinds of calculations: multiplication, division, integrals, and cubed roots. At the end of the story, after learning from Aub, one of the government officials who had initially questioned Aub says to himself, “9 times 7 is 63, and I don’t need a computer to tell me so. The computer is in my own head.” Followed by the closing line, “And it was amazing, the feeling of power that gave him.” Thinking for himself and understanding gave the man that “feeling of power.”

Eighteen years ago this month, in the same year when most of our graduates were born, was the second time I experienced a new technology that I knew I’d be using every day of my life. It was Friday, June 29, 2007, and I was one of the thousands of people who had waited in line overnight outside an Apple store to purchase the original iPhone, which is essentially the pocket-sized computer Asimov envisioned. I suddenly had a computer in my pocket that could do everything my TI-30 and Mac could do, plus I could type, scroll, and swipe a touchscreen, and take pictures of my kids. With the iPhone came apps, which have exponentially increased in number and usefulness with each version of these pocket computers.

The third time I experienced a new technology that would quickly become part of my life was in November 2022, during the Class of 2025’s sophomore year in high school – when ChatGPT was launched. Initially, I was intrigued by the program’s ability to create unique computer-generated art from text prompts. I then began to play with the program’s ability to produce reports and summarize information in whatever level of detail and tone I desired. Lately, I’ve been using ChatGPT to produce and improve spreadsheets, to analyze numerical data, and most recently have been exploring how well it writes computer code. 

In 30 short months, ChatGPT has changed the game on how we work and learn. I was not surprised by the article “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College” after having a conversation with a student who was completing his first year at UMass Amherst. He estimated that in a lecture hall of a hundred kids, only five wrote their papers themselves – the rest, he speculated, were using ChatGPT. Even my daughter, a junior at the University of Georgia, asked me this spring if I would pay $20 per month for her subscription to the premium ChatGPT+. For the record, I declined her request even though I regularly use this AI tool. 

With the increasing impact of generative AI, I worry that we are beginning to lose sight of the intellectual and personal benefits of a productive struggle. Schools, including colleges, are supposed to be places of intellectual and personal growth where students actively work through challenging tasks to find solutions, make connections, and discover meaning. Learning is a journey of deepening one’s understanding by making mistakes and, in doing so, it fosters greater resilience and problem-solving skills. Learning is about coming up with the right answer for yourself and experiencing “the feeling of power” that comes when you achieve new levels of understanding.

I would be doing the Class of 2025 a disservice if I told you to never use ChatGPT or other AI platforms, because I believe that your future success will depend in part on how well you are able to leverage AI to be more productive, more accurate, and more efficient. At the same time, I caution you to never become so dependent upon AI that you sacrifice your own growth and “the feeling of power” that intellectual mastery and creativity bring. There is lasting value in building your skills, even when perhaps AI could do a task faster.

Over the course of the 40 years of my post-high school journey, I’ve seen technology advance from the TI-30 calculator to personal computers to smartphones and now to AI. I can only imagine where technological advances will take you over the next 40 years. As you head out into the world, my advice to you is this: Don’t spend $40,000 or more a year for the next four years cheating your way through college like many of the students interviewed by The New York Times. I encourage you to engage in a productive struggle, learning how to leverage AI for some tasks, without relying on it to do your thinking or to express your creativity. Realize “the feeling of power” and accomplishment that comes when you develop skills and talents that AI can’t replace.

When I write commencement remarks, I spend several weeks mulling potential topics. I finally begin writing, organizing ideas, and transforming them into paragraphs with connections to my own experiences and what others have said or written. It’s a process that takes a lot of time, effort, and thought. I often bounce ideas off others, frequently drawing from those conversations and incorporating them into the final rendition. This is what a productive struggle looks like. It’s the same process you’ve likely used for major papers or big projects, and that shouldn’t change in college. Notice I didn’t say that I either started or ended the process with ChatGPT.

At the end of a productive struggle, having put in the effort and time to think for yourself and put your best efforts into the assignment, there is this wave of euphoric relief that you’re done. It is a “feeling of power,” a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of pride in what you’ve produced.

I could have saved myself days of thought and hours of typing and revision, if I got up here today and simply presented to you a commencement address written by ChatGPT. You may not have known the difference, but I would. I would have known that I cheated you, presenting an address constructed by AI as my own work. More than anything, I would have cheated myself … cheated myself of a feeling of power, accomplishment, and pride. I would have completed the task, but done so in a manner where I had no intellectual or emotional connection to what I had created and shared.

Wherever your journey takes you, you will have choices on how and when to use AI. My hope for each of you is that whatever you put out into the world, you do so with pride and not regret.