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2 1. Nick Latham, Olivia Picchione 2. Harper North, Carmen Bango, Linda Hanxhari, Helen Simpson, Madeline Kemper, Thomas Marshall, Marcello Rossi 3. Clan MacPherson Pipes and Drums leading the procession
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4. Kelly McCarthy, Nora McNamara-Bordewick, Haley Avery, Emily Anderson, Sara Luzuriaga
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5. The joyous implosion of the Commencement Circle 6. Sarah Rigazio 7. Nate Redding 8. School Copresident Annette Bell
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industrial production, and altering our economy in radical ways. What do these profound changes mean for you, soon-to-be graduates? One might draw the conclusion that the important thing is for graduates to know how to master this array of automated systems. To some extent, that is surely true. There are jobs to be had in programming, security, and marketing of new technologies. The government, of any nation you come from, needs you to help secure systems and borders—in cyberspace. The private sector needs you, to grow and to expand our economy, in the United States and around the globe. That is all true—and I do hope some of you pursue these kinds of occupations. I know you will be quite successful if you do so. The bigger conclusion that I draw, though, 14
Andover | Commencement 2016
is that we also need the humanists. I hope that all of you, with your newly minted Andover diplomas, will take full advantage of the liberal arts experience you have had here. To solve the problems that come along with advanced technology, society will need people with expertise that is deeper than the technical. Increasingly, companies and governments are finding that the people needed to tackle computing problems have not just technical expertise, but the kind of imagination that comes from a liberal arts background. Think ahead, beyond the immediate. Imagine the kinds of thorny issues that we can expect from a world that is more automated than it is today. With more computers making more decisions, including life-anddeath decisions on the roads and in the air, in our waterways and in all imaginable forms
of transit, we need ethicists who will set sensible rules ahead of time. Two self-driving cars, for instance, find themselves on a collision course. What answer? Perhaps imagine a drone in the mix. Though tricky, this problem turns out not to be a new one. There is a long philosophical tradition of the Trolleyologists, who have considered such problems for roughly half a century. The Trolleyologists were a group of moral philosophers who took up a series of questions that may sound quaint today. While there are variants on the problem, it goes something like this: A trolley—in our parlance, a train—goes out of control. It is speeding toward a crowd of people. The people in the crowd face certain death if the train hits them. You are standing nearby. You realize that you