Hello. I want to extend a warm welcome to the Class of 2026 graduates and their families. I am Ole Obermann. I graduated from ԱƵ in 1993. Returning to campus reminds me of the profound impact that ԱƵ has had on my life. I want to thank President Casey for his friendship and leadership and for inviting me to speak to you today.
Full disclosure: During my sophomore year at ԱƵ, I was taking my social chair aspirations at Beta Theta Pi very seriously. So much so that my parents made me move out of the fraternity house and into an apartment in Earlville so I could focus on my studies. Although I was not happy about it at the time, in retrospect it was a great idea. I want to thank them and tell them how much I appreciate the part they played in keeping me on the right track. Your parents and families deserve a great deal of gratitude for their role in your ԱƵ journey.
My personal and professional life have taken me down a path where music plays a very central role. I have worked in the music business for 30 years and as global head of music at Apple, I spend a considerable amount of my time thinking about what artificial intelligence will mean for artists and music fans moving forward. I have always believed that there is a sense of joy when we hear a song that we love for the first time. I hope you will experience that joy many times as you leave ԱƵ and step into new adventures, secure your first jobs, and start your own families.
As graduates, you are entering a world that is changing dramatically. AI’s emergence marks the first time that humans have created non-biological intelligence. In the near term this will have an impact that is more profound than the industrial revolution, the introduction of the internet, and the mobile phone, combined. In the long run, it is one of the biggest transitions in earth’s history, some would say on par with an asteroid hitting the earth 66 million years ago and wiping out the dinosaurs.
Many of the skills you learned so far will become irrelevant. The scarcity of knowledge that drove value will no longer be a factor. Law and accounting firms I work with say that 30% of their work can now be done by AI. The role of the software engineer is changing and many now spend their time editing code that AI writes rather than programming themselves. In music, 75,000 AI created songs are uploaded to streaming services every day.
I am told by ԱƵ’s Associate University Librarian, Joshua Finnell, that the library here houses 120 terabytes of data. That’s about 60 billion pages of text and images. AI could pre-train or memorize that in six months or it could index those pages in one week and then reference them for answers in seconds when prompted. This is exciting, unprecedented, and without proper parameters in place, scary.
There is a growing sentiment that AI can take over creativity as stories, scripts, songs, and designs become automated. However, I feel exactly the opposite is true. Human sensibility and the pursuit and study of the arts will matter even more in the future. I spend time with engineers who are building large language models that train on music and make it possible to generate new songs because they can process so much information so quickly and piece it together to create a new output. What I have already learned is that without human sentience those outputs are all lifeless and boring.
For example, I asked ChatGPT to tell me about the most iconic musical moments in history. It gave me two great moments: the Beatles performance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964, which set off “Beatlemania” in the United States, and Queen’s performance at Live Aid in 1985, a concert that is regarded as the greatest live musical performance in history.
I then asked Groq, another AI, whether it could create a musical moment as iconic as the Beatles or Queen. Groq told me that it could not because the magic came from the artists making bold, imperfect choices in front of a live audience under real pressure. Remember, AI generation is deterministic or statistically averaged from training data — it doesn’t have adrenaline, stage fright, possibly the intake of foreign substances … or the courage to deviate wildly in the moment based on human signals.
Many of the greatest inventions have been the result of a mistake or breaking the rules intentionally: Alexander Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin, Louis Pasteur ... pasteurization, Percy Spencer … the microwave oven, and Viagra. They all came about when scientists or inventors made mistakes. In music, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit’s” messy distorted sound came from unintentionally pushing instruments and amplifiers beyond intended limits. Slash was warming up and messing around when he came up with the guitar riff for the Guns & Roses anthem “Sweet Child of Mine.” And Beethoven pushed harmony so far that listeners at the time thought that certain notes were a mistake. But he wasn’t making mistakes. He was taking intentional risks that made it acceptable for music to break its own rules. AI does not understand that. I would bet, and I hope that there are students in this graduating class that will be rule breakers.
Your personal relationships will become even more important in the future. And ԱƵ has prepared you very well for that. ԱƵ attracts and trains great minds with an extraordinary ability to interact with others. Make sure you connect the dots that ԱƵ puts out there for you. My first job in the music business came through Rob LaPorta, ԱƵ Class of 1987. My classmate, Julian Farrior, who is here today, is one of the main reasons I went to Northwestern’s Kellogg School for my MBA. Julian also introduced me to President Casey. Twenty-five of my classmates are here today watching their children graduate from ԱƵ. Julian’s wife, Jenny Farrior, is also a ԱƵ graduate, and she introduced me to my wife, Stephanie.
In your 20s and 30s you will have to balance your professional aspirations with finding the right person to spend your life with. One of the most important decisions you make will be who you decide to make your life partner. When you find love and harmony everything else will fall into place. I am very grateful that my home with my wife, Stephanie, and our three wonderful boys, Jack, Wolfie, and Aro, is a place of love and peace, and constant inspiration and adventure.
Let’s revisit ԱƵ’s library and those 120 terabytes of data. AI does not feel or remember what went in to writing each of those papers. A student having a breakthrough that will shape the way she thinks about things for the rest of her life. A professor disclosing a meaningful discovery that unlocks a new way or thinking that other academics will build on. The average student spends 3,200 hours studying and 2,300 hours in the bars or at parties during the ԱƵ experience. AI cannot factor the social and emotional learning and connections that happens during that time into its outputs.
I recall two classes from my time at ԱƵ very fondly. Stage Design with a visiting professor, Franco Collavechio, and History of Jazz with Dexter Morrill. Those were classes that were outside of the lane of my major in International Relations. They had an unexpected impact on me, and they instilled a curiosity and a confidence that led me to the music and entertainment business. The most important aspects of your ԱƵ experience might surprise you later in your journey.
I want to talk about the importance of conviction. The greatest impact in life will likely happen when you feel uncomfortable and are challenged. Spanish pop star Rosalia sings in 13 languages on her latest album, Lux. She incorporates opera, flamenco, and hip-hop into her songs. She took inspiration from medieval scriptures. Rosalia rewrote the norms of how to make a pop album. A journalist reviewed the album and said it creates an uncomfortable experience for some listeners and that it is one of the most important musical releases in decades. True art often breaks rules.
I’ll leave you with a few ideas:
- Focus on learning and using AI every day. Become fluent. It will enable so many incredible things.
- But at the same time look up from your screens and put equal importance on human connections. Stay grounded in the real World and look up at the stars and into nature.
- Be willing to take chances and make mistakes because I am certain you will land on your feet.
- Find your people because the saying “you are who you surround yourself with” is true.
- …and in your pursuit of love, try not to fall in love with an AI Chatbot, and if you do, just make it a fling.
Lastly, I wish I could make this an Oprah Winfrey moment and gift you all new iPhone 17 Pro Max’s…Unfortunately, I can’t do that today. But I made you a playlist on Apple Music. It is called ԱƵ Class of 2026. And of course it contains 13 songs. We will put it out on ԱƵ’s socials. I hope you will listen and that one of the songs will resonate with you.
Class of 2026 we are counting on you. Machines can assist but they cannot replace us.
Congratulations, and don’t let the robots win!