当AI与技术以前所未有的速度改变世界，我们应该接受怎样的教育，又该如何面对一个无法预测的未来？9月15日，斯坦福大学校长乔纳森·莱文在开学典礼上，为2030届新生给出了他的回答：保持探索的自由，尊重真正的专业知识，在与不同的人相遇中成长，并始终相信人的行动能够改变未来。

正如乔纳森·莱文在演讲中所说：“未来不是发生在你身上的事情，而是由你亲手创造的东西。”

因为真正难被AI替代的，可能从来都不是某一门具体技能，而是你怎么形成判断，怎么面对分歧，怎么在一个还没有答案的世界里继续往前走。

演讲全文如下：

一年级新生、转学生以及各位家人：

欢迎来到斯坦福！

我们非常高兴你们来到这里。今天早晨，看到你们搬进校园，我们也非常开心。这是我一年之中最喜欢的时刻之一。各位父母和家人，我们尤其高兴看到你们脸上流露出的那份自豪。

首先，让我根据已有证据做一个预测——尽管我承认，这个预测的样本量相当小。我预测，你们大概不会记住今天这场演讲的多少内容。但是，你们会记住初到斯坦福时的那种感觉。

至少对我而言，的确如此。

1990年秋天，我乘飞机横跨美国，一辆蓝色的SuperShuttle接驳车把我和我的两个旅行袋送到了Wilbur Hall门前。那种感觉至今仍然历历在目，仿佛就发生在昨天：阳光下漫步校园，认识宿舍里的几个同学——直到今天，我仍然和其中一些人保持联系——还有第一次看到自己的宿舍房间。

你们中有些人也许会问：这么多年过去，宿舍房间变化大吗？答案是：没有。我们把这叫作“兼收并蓄的风格”（eclectic）。

当年我选择斯坦福，是因为这里给人一种开放与充满可能的感觉，因为这里拥有一种探索的精神。斯坦福没有让我失望。这也是为什么直到今天，我仍然留在这里的众多原因之一。而现在，看到你们即将开启属于自己的旅程，我感到无比兴奋。

这个周末，我原本计划前往佛罗里达，观看另一位斯坦福探索者启程。

杰西卡·沃特金斯（Jessica Watkins）于2006年秋天来到斯坦福。她想成为一名宇航员。当然，我小时候也曾梦想成为纽约扬基队的中外野手，所以这种童年梦想并不总能成真。但是对杰西卡来说，梦想真的实现了。

在斯坦福，杰西卡学习的是地质与环境科学。她还是女子橄榄球队的明星队员，大二时随队赢得了全国冠军。她曾在NASA艾姆斯研究中心进行暑期实习，并研究如何在火星土壤中种植植物。这些经历为她后来攻读博士学位，并最终入选NASA宇航员计划奠定了基础。

如今，她已经成为前往国际空间站的Crew-13任务指挥官——这是她第二次前往那里。顺便说一句，斯坦福已经培养了27名宇航员，而且斯坦福培养的女性宇航员比美国任何一所非军事大学都多。

我本来希望今天能够指着天空告诉你们：看，杰西卡正在轨道上。但就像太空任务经常发生的那样，原定于星期六进行的发射被推迟了。

我已经迫不及待地想在真正发射的那一天亲临现场。也许有朝一日，我们还能看到杰西卡真正运用她接受过的地质学训练，行走在月球上，甚至火星上。

我之所以如此喜欢杰西卡的人生轨迹，也如此希望亲眼见证她的发射，是因为她的故事恰好与我整个夏天一直思考的一件事情联系在一起。

今年秋天，我将教授COLLEGE 101的一个班。你们中的许多人也会选修这门课。对我来说，这将是一门新的、也与我以往教学很不一样的课程。

我的专业是经济学，所以过去我通常教授博弈论、创新，或者如何设计市场之类的课程。而COLLEGE 101讨论的是：教育在帮助你过上一种美好生活的过程中，究竟应该扮演怎样的角色。

斯坦福一年级课程体系有一个特点：我们会邀请来自整个校园不同领域的教师共同参与教学。所以，你们中有些人的老师可能是文学学者，有些人的老师可能是物理学家、医生，或者——像我这样——一个后来当上大学校长的经济学家。

因此，今年夏天，我读了很多东西：柏拉图、杜波依斯、泰戈尔、丹加伦巴（Dangarembga）、伊壁鸠鲁、塞涅卡；塔拉·韦斯特弗（Tara Westover）的回忆录；还有玛丽·雪莱的《弗兰肯斯坦》。

这些阅读材料中，有许多都在讨论：在不同的时代和不同的地方，教育应该是什么样子；还有一些则是不同人物亲身接受教育的经历。整个学季，你们都会围绕这些作品展开讨论。

而这些阅读让我产生了一个问题：

斯坦福教育究竟有什么独特之处，使它区别于人类在不同历史时期、不同地方曾经存在过的种种教育形式？它又将怎样帮助你过上一种美好的人生？

我认为有三个答案。

一、探索的自由

第一，是探索的自由。

许多教育传统在设计之初就是相对狭窄的：固定的学习课程，在某一个特定领域不断深入。斯坦福不一样。你们即将开始的，是一场真正的发现之旅。

你们将有机会选修不同领域的课程，接触许多全新的思想，也有机会——改变自己的想法。

改变想法，本身就是教育非常重要的一部分。

我在斯坦福读大一的时候，刚来到这里时完全不知道自己究竟想学什么。我选了一门东方哲学课程，参加了一个关于陀思妥耶夫斯基的研讨班，还修了一门对我而言难度极大的数学课。最后，我选择了英语和数学双专业。

杰西卡·沃特金斯最初学的是工程学，后来转到了地球科学。

以赛亚·伯林（Isaiah Berlin）曾经有一个著名的说法：思想家可以分成两种。一种是狐狸——知道很多事情；另一种是刺猬——知道一件大事。

博雅教育希望让你同时拥有一点狐狸和刺猬的特质。其背后的理念是：无论是形成良好的判断力，还是成为一个合格的社会成员，我们既需要真正掌握某些领域，也需要接触不同的思维方式。

二、专业知识依然重要

第二，研究型大学建立在一个基本前提之上：专业知识很重要。

当我们把学者和本科生放在一起时，所有人都会从中受益。你们将向那些把自己整个职业生涯都奉献给某一领域的教授学习。与此同时，你们也会不断向他们提出问题，促使他们解释自己的研究领域究竟是什么，以及它为什么重要。

这种交流是双向的。

我们所有教师都曾经有过这样的体验。我自己最喜欢的一个研究项目，就是从我的一名学生开始的。

他大三暑假时，在亚利桑那州图森的一家二手车经销商工作。那门生意非常有意思。后来，我们围绕它共同写了一篇论文。我从中学到了非常多东西，我想他也是如此。

几年之后，他和他的同学创办了一家公司——后来成为了美国迄今最成功的二手车公司。

三、校园本身就是教育

第三，是校园生活本身的经历。

正如Shaw院长刚才所说，你们是一个令人印象深刻、背景极其多元的群体。但这并不是你们来到这里的真正原因。

你们来到这里，是为了成为未来的那个自己。

而你最终成为怎样的人，很大程度上将由你们彼此塑造。

这种塑造发生在宿舍里，在食堂里，在排练室里；发生在你为斯坦福的运动队呐喊助威的时候，也可能发生在——偶尔——跳进校园喷泉游泳的时候。

我希望你们能够共同分享并真正拥抱斯坦福校园独特的文化：对卓越的追求，对思想的开放，以及一种乐观主义精神。

斯坦福文化的核心，是这样一种信念：

我们相信，人们能够共同努力解决问题；我们相信，未来不是发生在你身上的事情，而是由你亲手创造的东西。

2030届的同学们，你们来到斯坦福的这个时刻非同寻常。

技术正在迅速发生变化，并有望彻底改变科学发现、教育以及我们生活的许多方面。即使是在斯坦福——这个曾经孕育半导体产业、现代计算机体系结构以及互联网时代的地方——也没有任何人能够准确预测这一切最终将如何展开。

但是，不妨设想一下：

假如现在给你一张白纸，让你从零开始设计一个最适合身处当下这个时代的地方，你希望它具有什么特征？

一个允许人们自由探索并不断适应变化的地方。

一个在众多领域拥有深厚专业知识的地方——科学、技术、人文学科、艺术以及社会科学。

一个面向未来、致力于解决问题的地方。

所以，有一件事情我可以非常有信心地告诉你们：

你们来对了地方。

正是这些让斯坦福成为身处变革时代的理想之地的特质，也解释了为什么大学能够成为一种长久存在的制度。自我更新，本来就是大学设计的一部分。

事实上，你们今天的到来，本身就是一次新的更新。这也是为什么今天是我一年之中最喜欢的日子之一。

前面，我谈了你们即将开始接受的教育，也谈了它为什么如此独特。最后，我想用三条我很愿意与学生分享的建议来结束今天的演讲。

第一，带着目标去探索

你们拥有巨大的自由，也拥有无数选择：选择什么课程，参加什么活动，以及如何安排自己的时间。

在斯坦福这么多年，我发现最成功的斯坦福学生往往会无所畏惧地探索。他们会承担一些风险，会尝试新的事物。

但与此同时，他们也会为自己设定目标，并且经常思考：

我究竟希望完成什么？

他们的探索，是有目的的探索。

第二，保持好奇，而不是急于评判

你们即将加入一个拥有极其丰富的背景、信念、经历和人生理想的校园。

这是一个非同寻常的学习机会。但与此同时，这也意味着，你一定会遇到与你意见不同的人，也一定会碰到一些令你反感的观点。

而一所大学的校园文化，在某种程度上恰恰就是由我们如何面对这些时刻所定义的。

我们可以形成这样一种环境：人们不断升级冲突，最终陷入激烈争吵。

我们也可以形成另一种环境：一旦发生分歧，人们便诉诸权威，或者诉诸社交媒体。

但是，我们还有第三种选择：

当遇到分歧时，人们首先提出问题，开启讨论。

这是一种尊严文化（culture of dignity）。

在斯坦福，我们希望拥有这样一种尊严文化。

作为斯坦福的学生，我希望你们：保持好奇，而不是急于评判。

这是一座多元校园能够真正成功的关键。

第三，珍惜你能够来到这里的幸运

最后，斯坦福曾经有一位传奇网球教练。他带领自己的球队赢得过17次全国冠军。

每次训练开始的时候，他喜欢走上球场，对队员们说一句：

“真抱歉，今天天气这么糟。”

这是他提醒队员的一种方式：无论他们的生活中正在发生什么，无论球队目前表现如何，他们都应该意识到——能够身在斯坦福，本身就是一种幸运。

现在，你们也处在这样一个幸运的位置。

我希望你们能够怀着谦逊接受这份幸运，同时怀着一种服务他人的愿望。

当你们开启自己的斯坦福旅程时，我也希望你们真正拥抱斯坦福文化核心中的那种开放感与可能性。

让你们的好奇心更加广阔，让你们的探索更加广阔，也让你们能够作出的贡献更加广阔。

我已经迫不及待地想看到，你们将如何度过自己在这里的时光。

也期待看到，这段旅程最终会把你们带向怎样的星辰。

欢迎你们，斯坦福2030届！

英文原文：

First-years, transfer students, and families, welcome to Stanford.

We are so glad you're here, finally, after a month of waiting since your friends started school.

Today is one of my favorite days of the year, and parents and families, we particularly enjoyed seeing the look of pride on your faces as you moved your children in this morning.

I want to start with a prediction.

I predict that you will remember almost none of what I'm about to say.

But you will remember the feeling of arriving at Stanford.

That has certainly been the case for me.

In the fall of 1990, I flew across the country and a blue Super Shuttle bus dropped me and two duffel bags in front of Wilbur.

I remember the feeling as if it were yesterday, walking around the campus in the sun, meeting a few people, some of whom I still talk with today, and seeing my room for the first time.

Some of you might wonder, have the rooms changed much?

The answer is no.

We call it eclectic.

I had chosen Stanford for its sense of openness and possibility for its spirit of exploration.

It did not disappoint.

And that's one of the many reasons that I'm still here today, and I'm so excited to see each of you launch on your own voyages.

This weekend, I was scheduled to be in Florida to watch another Stanford voyager launch.

Uh, Jessica Watkins, arrived at Stanford in the fall of 2006.

She wanted to be an astronaut.

Now of course, I grew up wanting to be center fielder for the New York Yankees, so these things don't always work out.

But in Jessica's case, it did.

At Stanford, Jessica studied geological and environmental sciences, she was a star on the women's rugby team winning a national championship as a sophomore.

She did a summer internship at NASA Ames Research Center.

She studied how to grow plants in Martian soil.

Those experiences set her up to pursue a PhD and eventually to be selected into NASA's astronaut program.

Today, she is the commander of the Crew 13 mission to the International Space Station.

It'll be her second time.

By the way, Stanford has graduated 27 NASA astronauts.

And more female astronauts than any civilian university.

So I was hoping at this point that I would point up at Jessica in orbit, but as often happens with space missions, the launch on Saturday was delayed.

I can't wait to be there when it does happen, and maybe one day see Jessica put her geology training to work walking around on the moon or Mars.

One of the reasons I was so excited to be at Jessica's launch and love her trajectory is that it ties into something that I have been thinking about all summer.

So this fall, I'm teaching a section of college 101, of course, that many of you will take.

It'll be a new class for me, and actually quite different.

My field is economics, so usually I've taught classes on game theory or innovation, or how to design markets.

College 101 is about the role of education in preparing you to live a good life.

It's a feature of our freshman curriculum that faculty from all across campus are invited to teach in it.

That's why some of you will have literary scholars and others might have a physicist or a physician, or an economist who became a university president.

So this summer, I've done a lot of reading.

Plato, Du Bois, Tagore, Dangarembga, Epicurus, Seneca, Tara Westover's memoir, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

And many of the readings are about what education should look like, or personal accounts of education, at different times and places.

You'll get to talk about them all through the quarter.

The readings raise a question.

What is it about a Stanford education that distinguishes it from the many and varied forms of education over time and across places?

How would prepare you for a good life?

I want to suggest three answers.

First, the freedom to explore.

Many educational traditions are narrow by design.

They're a fixed course of study, depth in a particular area.

Stanford is different.

You're embarking on a true journey of discovery.

You'll have the opportunity to take classes and encounter new ideas across many fields.

And as you just heard, to change your mind.

Changing your mind is a big part of education.

My freshman year, I arrived at Stanford with no idea what I wanted to study.

I took a class in Eastern philosophy, took a seminar on Dostoevsky, I took what was for me, an incredibly challenging math class.

I ended up majoring in English and mathematics.

Jessica Watkins started as an engineer and then she fell in love with geology.

Isaiah Berlin famously described two types of thinkers.

The fox, who knows many things, and the hedgehog, who knows one big thing.

A liberal education aims to give you some of both.

The theory being that judgment and citizenship require both mastery and exposure to different ways of thinking.

Second, the premise of a research university is that expertise matters, and that by putting scholars together with undergraduates, everyone benefits.

You will learn from faculty who have devoted their entire lives to a field.

And in turn, you'll ask questions, you'll push the faculty to explain their field, and why it matters.

The exchange runs in both directions.

All of us on the faculty have experienced this.

One of my favorite research projects started when one of my advisees spent a summer after his junior year working for a used car dealership in Tucson, Arizona.

The business was fascinating.

And we ended up writing a paper about it.

I learned a ton, and I think he did too.

A few years later, he and some of his classmates started, what is by far the most successful used car company in the United States.

Third, there's the experience of the campus.

So, as Dean Shaw just described, you are a very impressive and wide ranging class.

But that's not why you're here.

You're here for who you are going to become.

And much of that will be shaped by each other.

In dorms, in dining halls, in rehearsal rooms, cheering on Stanford teams, or perhaps occasionally swimming in a fountain.

What I hope you will share and embrace is the distinctive culture of Stanford's campus.

The pursuit of excellence, the openness to ideas, the sense of optimism, at the heart of Stanford is a belief in our ability to work together and solve problems, a belief that the future is something you build rather than something that happens to you.

You, the class of 2030, are arriving at a particularly momentous time.

When rapid technological change promises to transform discovery, education, and many aspects of our lives.

Even here, in a place which launched the semiconductor industry, modern computer architecture and the internet age, no one can forecast exactly how it will unfold.

But consider the following.

Suppose you were starting with a blank sheet of paper, and you were asked to design a place to be at the current moment.

What attributes would you want?

A place with the freedom to explore and adapt, a place with expertise across many disciplines, science, technology, humanities, arts, the social sciences, a place that is forward looking and problem solving.

So I can't tell you what the future will hold.

But what I can tell you with confidence is that you are in the right place.

The attributes that make this the right place to be, at a time of change, also help explain why universities are such enduring institutions.

Renewal is part of our design.

Indeed, your arrival is a moment of renewal, yet another reason today is one of my favorite days of the year.

So I've talked about the education on which you are embarking and why it's distinctive.

I'll finish with three pieces of advice that I like to share every year.

First, you have a lot of freedom and many choices, courses, activities how to spend your time.

You may find it overwhelming.

In many years at Stanford, I found that the most successful Stanford students explore fearlessly.

They take some risks, they try new things, but they also set goals, and they think often about what they hope to accomplish.

They explore with intention.

Second, you're joining a campus where people have a vast array of backgrounds, beliefs, experiences, and aspirations, that is an extraordinary opportunity for learning.

But it also means that you will encounter people with whom you don't agree, ideas that you might find objectionable.

The culture of the campus is in some ways defined by these moments, these moments of friction.

We can have an environment where people escalate disagreement into heated arguments, we can have an environment where people appeal to social media, or to authority, or we can have a culture where people respond to each other by asking questions and opening a discussion.

That's a culture of dignity.

At Stanford, we want to have a culture of dignity.

As a Stanford student, I hope you will be curious and not judgmental.

That's a recipe for a successful diverse campus.

Finally, we had a legendary tennis coach at Stanford.

His teams won 17 national titles.

And he would like to come out on the court every day and start practice by saying to the team, "Sorry about the weather."

It was his way of reminding them that whatever was going on in their lives, however the team was doing, they were all in a fortunate position to be here at Stanford.

You are now in such a position.

And I encourage you to embrace it with humility and with a desire to serve others.

So as you launch in your Stanford journey, I hope you embrace the sense of openness and possibility at the heart of Stanford, be expansive in your curiosity, in your exploration, and in your contributions.

I can't wait to see what you do with your time here, and where in the stars it will take you.

Welcome, Stanford Class of 2030.