Leah Pistorius
June 15, 2026
Ram Shankar Siva Kumar, founder of Microsoft's AI Red Team and author of Not With a Bug, delivered the 2026 graduation address for the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering.
View the full text of the address below and the recording on YouTube.
Step back from Certainty. Step out of Center. Step into Humanity.
By Ram Shankar Siva Kumar
First off, let’s give a round of applause to the class of 2026. You. Did. It. Congratulations graduates! I am immensely proud of you, your effort and your courage. Your effort and courage to not just start something new, but also to finish it. I am absolutely proud of you.
Dear graduates, parents, faculty and guests – Thank you for this honor!
Ever since I received this invitation I was filled with fear. Petrified, because what the hell am I going to tell to this brilliant, and tenacious group of graduates. But then, I realized that nothing I say for the next 15 minutes is going to realistically matter.
I graduated in 2012, and I tried hard to remember who my commencement speaker was. I failed, and I texted my friend. She had no clue either. So, we added another friend. And it took three middle aged millennials to triangulate -- thanks to Google Photos -- that our commencement speaker was the emmy and Tony nominated actor, Patrick Wilson. And as you can pretty much see, I am no Patrick Wilson and my acting was limited to a middle school production of Oliver Twist, as prisoner #71. All this to say, you not only need to take photos of me but also write my name down cos I don’t even have a Wikipedia page.
I do remember one thing about commencement speeches: None ever wished it to be longer.1 So, given the low bar, for the next 15 or so minutes, I hope to give some perspectives – a few steps --three to be precise – One step for you to navigate our times, One step for you as you search for your first job and one step for when you land your job.
Before you begin booing, I want you to know that my job is finding out how AI systems can fail in the real world. So, I promise no simplistic “AI is silver bullet” framing.
When I was a graduate student this field of finding failures in AI systems was called “adversarial machine learning” and back in the 2010s, the field was comically small. So small, that we had no dedicated conferences. The running joke was that you can round all of us working in the field, put us on a 14 foot catamaran, and should it sink, we would not even make page Six.
Today, of course, our AI Safety tent has grown.
And my team is prime example of how big the tent has grown. To start, we speak 17 different languages, from Farsi to French, Mongolian to Mandarin. We have PhDs and college drop outs; we have military veterans, the formerly incarcerated, and the formerly homeless. Our expertise is just as diverse – expertise in software engineering, user study, neuroscience, cybersecurity, linguistics, psychology and even bioweapons.
And this growing tent of experts and voices is needed, because AI it seems, continues to defy every wind, outride every tempest and invade every zone.2
This invasion, like all successful invasions, comes funded from a potent war chest. If you look at the private AI investment last year alone, it reached $360 Billion.3 To put that into context, we are spending more per year on AI, than today’s dollar cost of the entire 13 year Apollo Misson that put a man on the moon.4
So, how good is our return on investment?
It really depends on whom you ask.
Open Twitter and you will notice some heralding an AI breakthrough in every breath. Open Bluesky, and you will hear this technology is nothing more than a finished fool5, a stochastic parrot that just predicts the next word. For every notarized and credentialed Casandra heralding that AI will kill us all6, there are respected researchers who retort that AI will bring us an age of abundance.7 AI is a veritable companion, one group will thrust. AI is the next addiction, the other will parry. On the one hand, for some, AGI is just around the corner, and on the other hand, for others, AGI will never materialize.
It is hard to not notice that our conversation on AI, like our politics, has gotten heated and polarized. Each group is employing a rhetoric too loud, a tone too uncharitable, and advancing actions that is increasingly too incredulous. And instead of truth seeking missions and nuance, we have tribes. The Capulets vs the Montagues8. The Jets vs The Sharks. Gryffindor vs Slytherin. And members from one clan seem to unendingly chastise the other. You are either all in – or AGI pilled as they say - Or you are all out, decrying, disparaging and deriding any meaningful progress as overrated and overhyped.
My advice to you: is that during this chaos, continue doing what got you to here: channel your inner student. If you encounter an idea that stirs up strong feelings, pause. Ask yourself why. And before you tear it down, be charitable. Reach out to the person in private and deploy the three most powerful words in the English language: “I don’t know”. Don’t be the pesky reviewer #2 and be snarky and reject arguments wholesale.
This does not mean you need to be engrossed with every slop that comes your way. Instead, it is a call for you to be the cooling saucer9; for you to be seen as a voice of reason, and for you to be the steady hand. It is hard and I am not always good at it. But, every time I use it, I promise this will be worth it.
That is your first step: Step back from certainty.
Step back from certainty that the die has been cast, that the trajectory has been set. Step back from certainty of both AI doom and AI boom. And step back from certainty and invite possibility.
Talking of certainty, I know the pain that you all are going through. It is easy to step back and be philosophical about the future of AI but for many of you, stepping back isn’t your primary concern right now. Paying rent is. Finding a job is.
I know many of you here are worried about finding a job. If you are a young graduate with a tech degree, you are now twice as likely to be unemployed compared to a liberal art or a communication major.10 This absolutely sucks. You were told and sold that a tech degree puts you on the ramp to a guaranteed job and what you have ahead is a mountain of despair.11 My friend who was recently laid off, and applying for a job, said that it is like shouting into the void. The void where resumes go to die. Even with 8 years of tech experience at Amazon, landing a job was close to impossible.
Some are abandoning CS altogether: my colleague is now nudging his son to move away from engineering and to take up construction, trying to make most of the data center boom. As an immigrant, I also know that not having a job effs up your visa. I see all of your lost happiness and lasting pain.12
Because I am transparent, I do not think any amount of reframing the situation is wise.
I do want to talk to two people in the audience: to your family and then to you.
Dear parents, don’t freak out if the job your kids have is not what you are used to.
For context: I was born in Madras, India – if you imagine India to be shaped like a slice of pizza, I am from the tip of the pizza – to a squarely middle-class background. My mother dropped out of college and my dad just learned about life reading books that his friend recommended. My parents, my sister and I lived with our grandparents in their house. We had a used car, our family never went on vacations, and for a good part of my early childhood, my sister, my parents and I slept in a single bedroom. My parents drilled into us that we need to study hard and work hard. The why was sort of implicit and left out. Education is the one thing that provides the escape velocity from the clutches of poverty.
That was the deal: study hard and work hard, and you will get a job. And despite no one in my family ever having been to the US, my dad was enormously enamored by this country, because as he says to this day “Nothing like a US education”.
My parents’ sacrifices are much like what many parents and families in this room have made. And my parents’ message would sound familiar to many other parents: Job security means 9 to 5, and retirement at 65. It means a place that values tenure. It means a place that values experience. Dear parents, your kids are entering a world where all these assumptions are being tested, so please be patient with them.
And for the graduates in the room: First off, everything you are seeing out in the world is new to us who already have a job. The whole coding agents picked up only in December of last year. Everyone who has a job is still upskilling ourselves, and trying to make sense of it. If you choose to join the party, you are not by any means late. You are just on time.
Next, please do not take your frustration with the world, out on your family and friends. No one googles me more than my mother. After my book on AI Safety came out, Google Summary changed my title in its overview from “Researcher” to “Author”. My mom freaked out, thought I lost my job and frantically called my friend to see if I am okay. To this day, whenever there is a layoff in any company in the US or India, my parents will call and ask if I am affected. I am 37, y’all. and my parents still worry about me. Just know that your parents’ world and their assumptions of the world is changing just as yours.
I know you’re the affected party in this.
So, this is your second step: Step out of the center.
When panic sets in, we all focus on us: the Center. Step out of the center and you will see that the answer you seek is only a fragment of the larger truth.13 When panic sets in, we tend to feel isolated and alone. Step out of the center and invite your loved ones into your circle. When panic sets in, we tend to solve it within our sphere of influence. Step out of the center and reach out for help.
Once you get your first job, here is my final perspective to you:
Be kind. Be kind to your coworkers. Be kind to your peers. Your collaborators. Your admin. Do not lose your humanity.
There is a prevailing narrative that the way to get ahead in your career is to be ruthless. To be cut throat and climb up through takedowns. Through deceit, through duplicity, through deception.
In my experience, these people are playing a losing game. They make the grave mistake that smart people make: that they are the only smart people in the room. But as they teach you in cybersecurity, every contact leaves a trace.
So, don’t be Machiavellian. Instead, be Paddington.
Yes, the Marmalade loving, relentlessly polite and kind Paddington bear.
Kindness can manifest in your own way. Bring baked goods. Share your knowledge freely. Make connections. Get your team together for an unwinder. Be generous in your credit assignment, and more importantly, your time.
People will not remember how many PRs you merged, people will not remember the number of papers you wrote and people will not remember the patents you filed. But they will remember you for your generosity, kindness and being there for them, in small ways and in big ways.
This is your third step: In a time, when we are grappling with understanding how to replicate human intelligence, human conscience, human creativity and wrestling being human means writ large, now is the time for you to step into to your humanity.
No one is more adept in this room to do this than you. You are literally getting a degree with human in the title. During your time at HCDE, you have pondered about lifting the human spirit, to see it soar and to see it flourish through technology. I assure you, that – that your quality to step into your humanity, your magnificent humanity – is your superpower.
I want to conclude with this:
In 2017, AlphaGo, the AI system from Google beat the professional player Lee Sedol in the boardgame, Go. In what is now shorthand for AI creativity, AlphaGo’s Move 37 was so original and so creative, that it knocked Lee Sedol's socks off first, and eventually knocked him out entirely from the Go board game profession.
Here is another true story: The nonprofit, Seattle Go Community Center recently celebrated its 30th anniversary teaching the Game of Go to the entire Seattle Community: from total novices to experts. From gatherings almost every day of the week, you can join them Mondays at Zoka Coffee Shop in Phinney Ridge, or hang out with them in the Phinney Community Center in the weekends.
I recently spoke to the operations manager of the Go Center, in preparation for this address. I asked her ‘So, why do people keep coming back, if AI is so good at the game?”. She, who was herself in the middle of a game, replied without missing a beat, ‘Cos we are people and we are not AI, and people want to actually connect with other people?’
We are people and we are not AI.
We are people and we are not AI.
Let’s lean into that. This is my call to action as you step into the world:
Step back from Certainty. Step out of Center. And, Step into Humanity.
It all starts with a step.
Congratulations Class of 2026!
[1] Samuel Johnson on Paradise Lost “None ever wished it longer than it is’ https://library.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/static/onlineexhibits/johnson/books/6_7.html
[2] Play on 1941 Ship of Victory poster ‘Commerce defies every wind, outrides every tempest, invades every zone’ - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c22777/
[3] https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/adv/insights/market-insights/market-updates/on-the-minds-of-investors/is-ai-already-driving-us-growth/
[4] “The United States spent $25.8 billion on Project Apollo between 1960 and 1973, or approximately $309 billion when adjusted for inflation to 2025 dollars” Source: https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo
[5] C.f Milton’s Prolusion
[6] https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superhuman/dp/0316595640
[7] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tech-ceos-ai-ushering-age-123000418.html
[8] A reference to Altman’s blog where he called the rivalry in the AI industry as “Shakespearean”. https://blog.samaltman.com/
[9] The Senate is called the cooling saucer, a quote apocryphally attributed to Washington.
[10] https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:outcomes-by-major
[11] ‘Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.’ – MLK https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety
[12] Paradise Lost Book I Line 55
[13] Allusion to Harvard Society of Fellows Declaration Principles. Abbott Lawrence Lowell, 1933, cited by Edward Tenner in Harvard Magazine ‘All that you may achieve or discover you will regard as a fragment of a larger pattern of the truth which from the separate approaches every true scholar is striving to descry.’ https://www.harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/html/1998/nd98/genius.html
[14] Allusion to Magnifica Humanitas https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html