Funny but serious, Chieng issues an AI warning to grads

Speaking Wednesday at Class Day, Emmy Award-winning comedian Ronny Chieng couldn’t have been less interested in urging grads to master artificial intelligence to advance their future careers. Instead, he told the Class of 2026 to apply AI to research in medicine and physics, but never as a replacement for creativity and critical thinking.

Using colorful language, Chieng leaned into his AI skepticism in remarks at Tercentenary Theatre, citing a 2025 MIT study titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT,” which found that overreliance on language learning models can lead to cognitive debt.

“I’m here to tell you the mission of your generation is to destroy AI,” said Chieng. “I know someone sitting out here right now who is saying, ‘What about the use of AI to pioneer breakthroughs in medicine and physics?’… If you’re using it for that purpose, you’re not the problem. I’m talking about the accumulation of cognitive debt due to excessive use of large language models … This is why you should be scared of AI.”

Chieng, who received commerce and law degrees from the University of Melbourne, has released three Netflix specials. His movie credits include  “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Kung Fu Panda 4.” He is a correspondent and rotating host for Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”

Addressing students, Chieng scoffed at using AI for reading and answering emails. “You know who else can do that? Me,” he said, drawing laughter from the audience. “If you can’t do that, how useless are you?”

Chieng, who grew up in Singapore and lived part of his childhood in Manchester, New Hampshire, reminded students that creativity is a deeply human endeavor. “Creating is the fun part,” he said. “Why would I want AI to take that away from me? 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.”

He continued, “Whatever your chosen profession is, please don’t let AI rob you of the fun part of it. Your generation’s upcoming battle won’t be humans against AI; that’s at least two months away. … It’s going to be people with substance versus people with shallow knowledge. It’s going to be mastery versus faking it. It’s going to be people with good taste versus tacky. I trust you will put in the work necessary to be on the right side of those battles.”

Class Day is an annual celebration of graduating students and features student speeches and a guest speaker invited by the Class. In introducing Chieng, Nicholas S. Kalkanis ’26 highlighted the role of humor and comedy in highlighting life’s contradictions and absurdities.

“Comedy can challenge us to be curious and honest about what we see,” he said.

The event included a moment of silence remembering class member Lakota Tolloak, who died in January 2025 after a brief illness. David Deming, Danoff Dean of Harvard College, and David Battat, incoming President of the Harvard Alumni Association, also offered remarks.

In closing, Chieng asked students to be make sure their “offline world is better than their online world,” and to refrain from “chasing the money.” The better course is the more personal one, he said.

“Follow your passion. For me, that was stand-up comedy. When you have clarity of purpose, and you’re doing something you love, every day can be a joy, and that joy can spread to others.”