About - Dean - Speeches & Writing - 2025 Graduation Remarks

Delivered by Darden Dean Scott Beardsley to the members of the Darden Class of 2025 on Saturday, 17 May 2025.
 

Be REAL to Hack Life’s Contradictions and AI

Good morning, esteemed faculty, proud families and the remarkable MBA Class of 2025.

Today is a moment of celebration, reflection and paradox. This is graduation, marking the end of an intense journey. Yet we also call this day commencement – the beginning of something new. So, which is it? The end or the start?

The truth is, it’s both. And that contradiction lies at the heart of life itself. 

The Contradictions of Humanity

Let’s start with a question: What words come to mind when you think about the state of the world today?
In a recent class, we asked this question. Most people responded quickly: ambiguous, anxious, polarized, worried. A few people said, optimistic or hopeful. Does that resonate with you?

We live in a world shaped by profound contradictions:

• Our expectations for our lives are rising yet our dissatisfaction is growing due to constant social comparison.
• FOMO (fear of missing out) on the future makes us miss the present.
• We’re more connected than ever through technology, yet many feel lonelier than ever.
• We’re crunched for time, yet we find hours to spend on our screens/phones.
• We yearn for certainty, but the only certainty is uncertainty.
• We humans learn by failing, yet we fear failure.
• We try to pay attention to everything and end up focusing on nothing.
• We want viewpoint diversity yet get upset when it happens

These contradictions pull us in opposing directions, creating tension and complexity. However, they aren’t obstacles; they’re the very fabric of our humanity. Your role as future leaders is not to avoid them but to embrace them – to create clarity and meaning within them. The key lies in being REAL. R-E-A-L is an acronym that I will explain in a moment. 

AI: The Ultimate Contradiction

Before we discuss how to navigate these contradictions, let’s address one of the most profound contradiction’s shaping our time: Artificial Intelligence.

AI is reshaping our world in ways we’re all trying to grasp.

Much like Alan Turing’s efforts to break the code of the Enigma, AI itself is an enigma and a paradox.

• It’s “intelligent,” with remarkable IQ. It’s spawned by humans, uses our training data, and connects in human ways — yet it’s not human. It’s real but artificial.
• People talk to AI and seek advice from it — some even marry it. But AI lacks emotion, free will and the ability to create meaning for itself.

Recently, an AI-powered chatbot made headlines for giving life advice that led to bad consequences. Some people even turn to AI for psychological counselling, for love and to cure loneliness. But here’s the reality as I see it: AI doesn’t feel or love you, it doesn’t suffer, and although it may ‘hallucinate’ or have clear objective functions, it doesn’t dream and have fun.

The debate rages on whether AI is a stakeholder and has personhood, with rights similar to other inhuman entities such as animals, corporations or ecosystems. What is “it”?

Some see AI as a solution to humanity’s challenges and imagine a future utopia where humans no longer need to work because AI will take on the burden, much like the book Rossum’s Universal Robots outlined almost a century ago.

I see a different future. I don’t believe work is a burden to eliminate. Work gives us purpose, growth and the chance to learn and help solve humanity’s greatest challenges. AI won’t eliminate work – it will change it, faster than we expect, and in many instances for the good. The real challenge won’t be for AI; it will be for us, as humans, to adapt and for you as leaders to help lead the change.

Built on algorithms, data centers and interconnected systems and sensors (the Internet of Things), AI is a black box. While it’s brilliant at optimizing, it’s inherently incomplete. As Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem suggests, AI cannot prove itself or its own being. It will never be human. But you are human and that itself is special. As much as AI may try to put you in its box, you can always step outside.

Hacking Life’s Contradictions: Be REAL

So, how do you navigate or hack this world of contradictions and AI to lead with purpose and find meaning in ambiguity? You can hack this enigma by being REAL — by grounding yourself in four fundamental imperatives:

1. The ‘R’ of REAL is for Relationships: Which relationships will I cultivate, and how?
2. The ‘E’ is for Emotion: How can I leverage the gift of emotion to build meaning and connection?
3. The ‘A’ is for Attention: Where and how will I direct my attention?
4. And the ‘L’ is for Liberty: How will I use my free will to build a meaningful life?

Let’s take a closer look at each of the four, starting with …

1. Relationships: The Bedrock of Happiness and Longevity 

One of the most striking findings from Harvard’s 75-year longitudinal study on human development, called the Grant Study, is that happiness and longevity are not driven by wealth or fame, but by deep, meaningful relationships. The study tracked participants from adolescence to old age, to understand what predicts healthy, fulfilling lives. It wasn’t cholesterol levels at middle age that predicted how well participants aged – it was how satisfied they were in their relationships.

As leaders, your ability to cultivate authentic relationships will define your success and your legacy. Technology and AI can help facilitate connections, but they cannot replace the human relationships that bring fulfillment, trust and purpose.

2. Emotion: The Human Superpower

Emotions — like love, empathy, and kindness — are gifts. They are the essence of human connection and meaning.

While AI can simulate emotions, it cannot feel them.

When you exercise emotions like love and empathy, you build bridges and create a culture of connection. Emotions are not signs of weakness – they are the true foundation of humanity and leadership. They can bring you joy and fulfillment.

3. Attention: The Currency of Free Will

Henry David Thoreau said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

We are where we spend our time and energy. In a world of relentless distractions, your attention is your most valuable asset. Where you place it determines the trajectory of your life. Will you invest time in Instagram likes and doom-scrolling or invest in building a career, a family, a legacy?

The solution is to be intentional with your attention – to focus deliberately on what truly matters to you.

4. Liberty: The Power to Choose

In On Liberty, John Stuart Mill described liberty as the freedom to pursue our own good in our own way. 

Your free will gives you the power to choose:

• To focus on what matters and decide why you do what you do.
• To frame situations in ways that empower you.
• To believe in possibilities, even when predictive models suggest otherwise.

Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

As AI evolves, this insight becomes even more prescient.  You are not required to be a predictive algorithm with a predetermined future.

RQ, HQ and Navigating the Future of Work

To hack life’s contradictions, you need to be REAL.

And there’s something else you need to know as you step into leadership roles and face challenges driven by the accelerating pace of AI, economic shifts and evolving societal expectations.

Your success will not primarily be determined by your IQ.

It will also be determined by your RQ – your Relational Quotient, or ability to build trust, foster collaboration and inspire others – and your HQ, which I call Humanity Intelligence.  AI’s superintelligent IQ will require humans to adapt, placing a premium on leadership skills to lead other humans through the change process.

• Your RQ (Relational Quotient) will prove that relationships are the currency of leadership in the age of AI. Your ability to connect authentically with people will set you apart from machines and enable you to inspire teams through uncertainty.
• Your HQ – and no I am not talking about headquarters – but your Humanity Intelligence. The uniquely human capacities of empathy, creativity and resilience will help you find meaning in the complexity, and help others adapt, thrive, and find their meaning.

Final Thought

As a final thought, remember that your life is the sum of all the moments to which you direct your attention and the meaning you give those moments or derive from them.

The choice is yours. Use your free will to direct your attention toward love, connection and purpose. Live deliberately. And in a world that is increasingly uncertain, most importantly, believe in yourself. Darden believes in you.

As you graduate and commence, remember that the world needs you — your IQ, your RQ, your HQ and your humanity — now more than ever.

Hack life by leading with Relationships, Emotion, Attention and Liberty.

Class of 2025, Be REAL, and please accept my sincere congratulations!

Thank you.