Thank you, Mark, for that generous but somewhat embarrassing introduction. 谢谢你，马克。你的介绍慷慨得让我有些不好意思。
President Kornbluth, trustees and faculty, students and families, guests, and members of this remarkable community of scholars and solvers: It’s a special honor to be with you today. 科恩布鲁斯校长、各位校董和教师、同学及家人、来宾，以及这个由学者和问题解决者组成的非凡群体的各位成员：今天能与你们相聚，我深感荣幸。
Graduates, I once sat where you now sit, brimming with excitement and the sense of accomplishment that comes with a hard-won MIT diploma. Congratulations! 毕业生们，我也曾坐在你们现在的位置，满怀兴奋，也为来之不易的麻省理工学院文凭感到自豪。祝贺你们！
Families, as the father of two MIT alums, I know first-hand the pride and emotion you feel today. 各位家人，作为两名麻省理工校友的父亲，我切身体会到你们今天的骄傲与激动。
Faculty members, as a senior lecturer here for 16 years, I saw up close how well you prepare these graduates for what lies ahead. And fellow trustees, it is a great privilege to serve alongside you. 各位教师，我在这里担任了十六年高级讲师，亲眼看到你们为毕业生即将面对的未来做了多么充分的准备。各位校董同仁，能与你们并肩工作，也是我的莫大荣幸。
I spent my childhood in Beirut, Lebanon. Three generations of my proud Armenian family shared an apartment on the ninth floor of our building. The window in the bedroom I shared with my great aunt looked out over the red-tiled roofs of Roman, Ottoman, and Byzantine buildings and beyond to the Mediterranean Sea. 我的童年是在黎巴嫩贝鲁特度过的。我们引以为傲的亚美尼亚家族三代人，共同住在一栋楼九层的一套公寓里。我和姑婆共用的卧室窗外，是罗马、奥斯曼和拜占庭时期建筑的红瓦屋顶，再远处便是地中海。
When civil war erupted in 1975 and the government imposed strict curfews, the state broadcaster often shifted from airing three hours of TV a day to offering round-the-clock programming of mostly American television shows, a diversion for my brothers and me when we were forced to stay inside. 1975年内战爆发、政府实行严格宵禁时，国家电视台常把每天三小时的节目改为全天播放，内容大多是美国电视剧。我们兄弟被迫待在家里时，这些节目成了消遣。
One show in particular had me captivated. Just hearing the theme song would set my heart racing — perhaps you know it, too. 有一部剧特别令我着迷。只要听见主题曲，我就会心跳加速——也许你们也知道。
That’s right… “Mission Impossible”! 没错，就是《碟中谍》！
Even if you never saw the TV show, you likely know the movies with Tom Cruise as agent Ethan Hunt. 即使没看过那部电视剧，你们大概也知道汤姆·克鲁斯饰演特工伊森·亨特的电影。
The encoded self-destructing message to the agent always began the same way: “Your mission, should you choose to accept it …” 发给特工的加密、自毁任务信息，总是以同一句话开头：“你的任务，如果你选择接受……”
No matter how long the odds, or how great the risk, the agents always took the assignment. 不论成功希望多么渺茫、风险多么巨大，特工们总会接下任务。
In the fifty years since, I have been consistently drawn to impossible missions, and today I hope to convince each and every one of you that you should be too. 此后的五十年里，我始终被看似不可能的任务吸引。今天，我希望说服你们每个人也去接受这样的任务。
Class of 2024, one incredibly challenging mission is already under your belt: You were given the assignment to begin your studies at MIT … without being at MIT. Going to college, without going to college, was not a mission you’d signed up for, but it is what you got. A handful of you did move to campus, but even for you, masking, testing, social distancing, and virtual classes meant orienting to a foreign land. You even learned a new language, as terms like “Q-week” and “SCUFFY” entered your MIT lexicon. No one knew what would happen next, or when it would all end. 2024届毕业生，你们已经完成了一项极其艰难的任务：开始在麻省理工求学，却不能身在麻省理工。上大学而不能到大学去，并不是你们报名时想要的经历，却成了现实。少数人确实搬进了校园，但即使如此，口罩、检测、保持社交距离和线上课程，仍让你们仿佛置身陌生的国度。随着“Q-week”和“SCUFFY”等词进入你们的校园词汇，你们甚至学会了一门新语言。没有人知道接下来会发生什么，也不知道这一切何时结束。
And yet, you found ways to thrive. You dove into your coursework and started to build mostly virtual friendships. In the words of your classmate Amber Velez, who rented a Cambridge apartment with three MIT roommates, you “patched together a little lifeboat in this vast sea of students, spread out over the world.” 尽管如此，你们还是找到了茁壮成长的方法。你们投入课程学习，也开始建立主要在线上维系的友谊。你们的同学安伯·贝莱斯和三名麻省理工室友在剑桥租房住。用她的话说，在散布世界各地的茫茫学生海洋中，你们“拼凑出一艘小小的救生艇”。
Earlier that year, just up the road in Kendall Square, my colleagues and I at Moderna had received another mission that seemed impossible: Develop a safe and effective vaccine that could save lives, restart the economy, and do so in less than a year. Oh, and while you are at it, get a billion doses manufactured, distributed, and into the arms of people around the world. 那年稍早，就在附近的肯德尔广场，我和莫德纳的同事也接到一项似乎不可能完成的任务：不到一年内研发安全有效的疫苗，以挽救生命、重启经济。哦，还得生产十亿剂，运送到世界各地，并为人们接种。
It was clear that if we accepted this challenge, it would take everything we had. We would have to slow 20 ongoing drug-development programs and focus on solving COVID. 我们很清楚，如果接受挑战，就必须倾尽所有。我们得放慢二十个正在进行的药物研发项目，集中力量解决新冠疫情。
We embraced the mission! 我们接受了这项任务！
Just 48 hours after Moderna obtained the sequence for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, we deployed our mRNA technology to produce a potent vaccine. Less than two months later, we enrolled our first patient in a clinical trial, and on November 16th, the vaccine was determined to be 94.5% effective against Covid-19. By some estimates, Moderna’s vaccine saved over 2 million lives during the pandemic. 莫德纳取得新冠病毒刺突蛋白序列仅四十八小时后，我们就运用信使核糖核酸技术制造出了强效疫苗。不到两个月，我们招募了首位患者参加临床试验；到11月16日，疫苗被认定对新冠肺炎有94.5%的保护效力。据一些估计，莫德纳疫苗在疫情期间挽救了超过两百万人的生命。
How did we do it? That’s another speech for another day. 我们是怎么做到的？这值得改天另作一次演讲。
But what I do want to talk about is what it takes to accept your own impossible missions and why you, as graduates of MIT, are uniquely prepared to do so. 今天我真正想谈的是，接受你们各自看似不可能的任务需要什么，以及为何身为麻省理工毕业生的你们，格外具备承担这些任务的条件。
Uniquely prepared – and also obligated. 你们不仅格外有准备，也有义务这样做。
At a time when the world is beset by crises, your mission is nothing less than to salvage what seems lost, reverse what seems inevitable, and save the planet. 当世界被种种危机困扰时，你们的任务无异于挽回看似失去的一切，扭转似乎不可避免的趋势，拯救我们的星球。
And just like the agents in the movies, you need to accept the mission – even if it seems impossible. I know the odds don’t appear to be in your favor. But this age of polycrisis is also a moment of poly-opportunity, fueled by artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing, and other modern technologies that are changing the world faster than people believe is possible. 就像电影里的特工，你们需要接受任务，即使它看起来不可能。我知道成功的机会似乎并不站在你们这边。但这个多重危机的时代，也是一个充满多重机遇的时刻。人工智能、机器学习、量子计算和其他现代技术正在推动这种机遇，让世界以超出人们想象的速度变化。
Now, you are uniquely equipped to turn science fiction into science reality. 如今，你们拥有独特的能力，能把科幻变成科学现实。
With the right mindsets, “Mission Impossible” can become “Mission Improbable” – as you overcome obstacles and seemingly long odds by imagining and innovating your way to novel solutions. 只要有恰当的心态，“不可能的任务”就能成为“虽然艰难但可能完成的任务”：你们可以凭借想象和创新，找到新颖的方案，跨越障碍与看似渺茫的成功机会。
So: How do you go about that? How do you become the agents the world needs you to be? 那么，该怎么做？怎样才能成为世界需要的特工？
You already have a head start, quite a significant one. You graduate today from MIT, and that says volumes about your knowledge, talent, vision, passion, and perseverance – all essential attributes of the elite 21st century agent. Oh, and I forgot to mention our relaxed uncompetitive nature, outstanding social skills, and the overall coolness that characterizes us MIT grads. 你们已经获得了相当大的先机。今天从麻省理工毕业，足以说明你们拥有知识、才华、远见、热情与毅力——这些都是二十一世纪精英特工必备的品质。哦，我忘了提，我们麻省理工毕业生还以轻松、不爱竞争、社交能力出众，以及整体上很酷而著称。
More seriously, you are trained in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology – fields that, when properly harnessed and supported, can be deployed against almost any seemingly impossible challenge. 认真地说，你们接受了科学、数学、工程和技术训练。这些领域若得到妥善运用与支持，几乎可以用来应对任何看似不可能解决的挑战。
You may not realize it yet, but your MIT education has given you a superpower – like X-ray vision – that lets you see through the illusion of impossibility and surface the blueprints for solutions. 你们或许还没有意识到，麻省理工教育赋予了你们一种超能力，就像透视眼，让你们看穿“不可能”的假象，发现解决问题的蓝图。
And as of today, you even have a secret decoder ring, better known as the Brass Rat! 从今天起，你们甚至有了一枚秘密解码戒指——大家更熟悉的名字是麻省理工的“黄铜鼠”校戒！
MIT’s history underscores these special powers. The telephone, digital circuits, radar, email, Internet, the Human Genome Project, controlled drug delivery, magnetic confinement fusion energy, artificial intelligence and all it is enabling – these and many more breakthroughs emerged from the work of extraordinary change agents tied to MIT. 麻省理工的历史印证了这些特殊能力。电话、数字电路、雷达、电子邮件、互联网、人类基因组计划、药物控释、磁约束核聚变、人工智能及其催生的一切——这些和许多其他突破，都来自与麻省理工有联系的杰出变革推动者。
Now let me ask you a question: Aside from MIT, what do such agents have in common? What equips them to accomplish seemingly impossible missions? 现在请允许我问一个问题：除了与麻省理工的联系，这些推动变革的人还有什么共同点？是什么让他们能够完成看似不可能的任务？
I’d argue that they do three things that make big leaps possible. They imagine, they innovate, and they immigrate. 我认为，他们做了三件使重大飞跃成为可能的事：想象、创新和迁移。
And now, it’s your turn. 现在轮到你们了。
Start by unleashing your imagination. 首先，释放你们的想象力。
People often see imagination as the exclusive province of the arts: of movie making, literature, painting. 人们常把想象力视为艺术的专属领域，例如电影、文学和绘画。
I think that’s nonsense. Imagination, to my mind, is the foundational building block of breakthrough science. 在我看来，这完全是无稽之谈。想象力是突破性科学的基础。
I am not making an argument against reason. Reason has a role to play, but in accomplishing impossible missions, it’s the servant, not the master. You can’t expect reasoning to do the work of imagination. At its best, scientific research is a profoundly creative endeavor. 我并不是反对理性。理性有它的作用；但要完成不可能的任务，它是仆人，而不是主人。不能指望推理代替想象力的工作。最好的科学研究是一项极富创造力的事业。
You have mastered proofs, and problem sets, and design projects, but in the words of mathematician and author Lewis Carroll: “Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.” 你们掌握了证明、习题和设计项目，但借用数学家兼作家刘易斯·卡罗尔的话：“想象力是与现实作战时唯一的武器。”
To the great Irish writer George Bernard Shaw, its role is even more fundamental. As he put it: 在伟大的爱尔兰作家乔治·萧伯纳看来，想象力的作用更为根本。他说：
“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” “想象是创造的开端。你想象自己渴望的事物，下决心实现所想象的，最终创造出你决心实现的东西。”
It is also your turn to innovate. Think of innovation as imagination in action. Or, perhaps, mens et manus, or “mind and hand,” but I hear that line is taken. 现在也轮到你们创新了。可以把创新看作付诸行动的想象力。或者说，是“思想与双手”——不过我听说这句话已经被人用作校训了。
MIT did not prepare you to shy away from the unknown, quite the contrary. You are now prepared to leap for the stars, sometimes quite literally — just ask the more than 40 NASA astronauts with MIT degrees. 麻省理工培养你们，绝不是为了让你们回避未知；恰恰相反。如今你们已准备好跃向星辰，有时甚至是字面意义上的跃向星辰——问问那四十多位拥有麻省理工学位的美国宇航局宇航员就知道了。
Leaps often involve unreasonable or even seemingly crazy ideas. Ordinary innovations are often judged by how reasonable the idea is as an extension of what already exists, and how reasonable the person proposing it is. 飞跃往往涉及不合常理、甚至看似疯狂的想法。人们评判普通创新时，常看它是否是现有事物的合理延伸，以及提出想法的人是否“讲道理”。
But ask yourself: Why do we expect extraordinary results from reasonable people doing reasonable things? 但请问自己：为什么我们期待理性的人只做合乎常理的事，却能取得非凡成果？
As you’ve probably guessed by now, I am utterly unreasonable, and an eternal optimist. As a lifelong entrepreneur and innovator, I have to be. 你们大概已经猜到了，我是个彻头彻尾不按常理出牌的人，也是永远的乐观主义者。作为终身创业者和创新者，我必须如此。
But I’ve always practiced a special kind of optimism – I call it paranoid optimism. This means toggling back and forth between extreme optimism and deep-seated doubt. 但我始终践行一种特别的乐观主义，我称之为“警觉的乐观”。这意味着在极度乐观与深切怀疑之间不断切换。
The kind of paranoid optimism needed to make scientific or technological leaps often starts with an act of faith. By that, I mean belief without facts — the very definition of faith. 促成科学或技术飞跃的这种警觉的乐观，往往始于一次信念之跃。我指的是尚无事实依据时的相信——这正是信念的定义。
I know faith is generally associated with religion. But interestingly, in my experience, pioneering science also starts with faith. You take leaps of faith and then you do experiments. 我知道，人们通常把信念与宗教联系起来。但有趣的是，以我的经验，开创性的科学也始于信念。你先凭信念跃出一步，然后再做实验。
On rare occasions, the experiments work, converting your leap of faith into scientific reality. 极少数时候，实验会成功，把那次信念之跃变成科学现实。
What a thrill when that happens! 那一刻是多么激动人心！
On your innovation journey, beyond optimism and faith, you will also need the courage of your convictions. Make no mistake, you leave MIT as special agents in demand. As you consider your many options, I urge you to think hard about what legacy you want to leave — and to do this periodically throughout your life. 在创新之路上，除了乐观与信念，你们还需要坚持自身信念的勇气。不要误会，离开麻省理工时，你们是备受需要的特殊人才。面对众多选择，我敦促你们认真思考希望留下怎样的遗产，并在人生中定期重新思考这个问题。
Not every mission you are qualified for is a mission worth accepting. You are far more than a technologist – you are a moral actor. The choice to maximize solely for profits and power will in the end leave you hollow. 并非每一项你们有能力承担的任务都值得接受。你们远不只是技术人员，也是要作出道德选择的人。如果只追逐利润和权力，最终只会感到空虚。
To forget this is to fail the world — and ultimately to fail yourself. 忘记这一点，就是辜负世界，最终也辜负自己。
I know many of you here – and some in the Class of 2024 not with us here today — are deeply troubled by the conflicts and tragedies we are witnessing. As an Armenian, descended from genocide survivors, and co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, I feel deeply the wounds of these conflicts. 我知道，在座许多人，以及今天未能到场的一些2024届同学，都深受眼前冲突与悲剧困扰。作为种族灭绝幸存者的后代、一名亚美尼亚人，以及“奥罗拉人道主义倡议”的共同创办人，我深切感受到这些冲突造成的伤痛。
I wish I had answers for all of us, but of course, I don’t. 我希望能为我们所有人找到答案，但当然，我没有。
But I do know this: having conviction should not be confused with having all the answers. Over my many years engaged in entrepreneurship and humanitarian philanthropy, I have learned that there is enormous benefit in questioning what you think you know, listening to people who think differently, and seeking common ground. 不过我确实知道：有坚定信念，不等于掌握所有答案。多年来参与创业和人道主义慈善工作，让我认识到，质疑自以为知道的事、倾听不同观点、寻求共同立场，都有巨大的益处。
As you grapple with today’s hard choices — and the many that lie ahead — rely again on your imagination. Imagine the world you want to create and work backwards from there. Be open to the many paths that could carry you towards this goal and let the journey inform which ones will succeed. 当你们努力应对当下的艰难选择，以及未来许多类似选择时，请再次依靠想象力。想象你们希望创造的世界，再从那里倒推该怎么做。对可能通往目标的多条道路保持开放，并让行进中的经验告诉你们哪些道路可行。
I’ve urged you to imagine, and to innovate. The last thing I want to leave you with is the need to immigrate. 我已敦促你们去想象、去创新。最后，我要留给你们的是“迁移”的必要性。
I’ll say more about what I mean by “immigrate” in a second, but first I want to give a shout-out to others who, like me, have left their homelands. 我稍后会进一步说明“迁移”的含义，但首先，我要向像我一样离开故土的人致意。
For those of you who have emigrated here from far away, or whose parents did, or whose grandparents did, please stand. 如果你们从遥远的地方移居到这里，或者你们的父母、祖父母曾这样做，请起立。
I applaud you. 我为你们鼓掌。
It may often feel like a disadvantage, but you will soon learn it is quite the opposite. 这段经历常会让人觉得自己处于劣势，但你们很快会明白，事实恰好相反。
When I first arrived at MIT, I worried I did not belong here: I spoke with an accent, my pastime wasn’t hockey or lacrosse, but Armenian folk dance. 初到麻省理工时，我担心自己不属于这里：我说话带口音，业余爱好不是冰球或长曲棍球，而是亚美尼亚民间舞蹈。
Then one afternoon, late in my first year here, I was walking down the infinite corridor when a poster caught my eye. Staring back from the poster was a Native American chief in full headdress, eyes defiant, finger pointed, seemingly right at me. The poster read: "Who Are You Calling Immigrant, Pilgrim??" 一年级快结束时的一个下午，我走过无限走廊，一张海报吸引了我的目光。海报上一位头戴羽饰的美国原住民首领盯着我，目光坚定，手指向前，仿佛正指着我。海报上写着：“你管谁叫移民，清教徒？”
I can’t tell you what an impact that had on me. Aside from Native Americans, we all, at some point, come from somewhere else. It helped me realize I belonged here — at MIT, in the United States. And graduates, families, YOU. DO. TOO. 我无法形容它对我的影响有多大。除了美国原住民，我们所有人追溯起来都来自别处。它帮助我明白，我属于这里——属于麻省理工，属于美国。毕业生们，各位家人，你们也一样，完全属于这里。
But here’s the really interesting thing I’ve learned over the years: You don’t need to be from elsewhere to immigrate. 但这些年我学到一件真正有意思的事：你不一定要来自别处，才能经历“迁移”。
If the immigrant experience can be described as leaving familiar circumstances and being dropped into unknown territory, I would argue that every one of you also arrived at MIT as an immigrant, no matter where you grew up. 如果移民的经历可以描述为离开熟悉的环境，被投放到未知之地，那么我认为，无论你们在哪里长大，每个人来到麻省理工时也都像一名移民。
And as MIT immigrants, you are all at an advantage when it comes to impossible missions. You’ve left your comfort zone, you’ve entered unchartered territory, you’ve foregone the safety of the familiar. Yet, you persist and survive. You figure out how to accomplish your mission. 作为麻省理工的“移民”，面对不可能的任务时，你们反而有优势。你们离开舒适区，进入未知之地，放弃熟悉环境带来的安全感，却坚持下来，生存下来，并找到完成任务的方法。
Like elite agents, immigrants are the ultimate innovators, equipped to navigate obstacles, to never say never. 与精英特工一样，移民是极富创新精神的人，善于穿越障碍，从不轻言“不可能”。
In fact, I often describe innovation as intellectual immigration. Just like those of us who emigrate from other countries, innovators pioneer new environments seeking a better future — not just for themselves but also for the larger world. So, whether you grew up in Cambodia, or in California, or right here in Cambridge, you can immigrate – and you need to keep immigrating. You need to leave your comfort zone, to think in new ways, to acclimate to the unfamiliar and embrace uncertainty. 事实上，我常把创新称为“智识上的移民”。正如从别国移居的人，创新者也开拓新环境，追求更好的未来——不仅为了自己，也为了更广阔的世界。因此，无论你们在柬埔寨、加利福尼亚州，还是就在剑桥长大，你们都可以“迁移”，而且需要不断“迁移”。你们需要走出舒适区，以新方式思考，适应陌生环境，拥抱不确定性。
If you imagine, innovate, and immigrate, you are destined to a life of uncertainty. Being surrounded by uncertainty can be unnerving, but it’s where you need to be. This is where the treasure lies. It’s Ground Zero for breakthroughs. 如果你们想象、创新并迁移，就注定要与不确定性相伴。被不确定性包围可能令人不安，但那正是你们需要身处的地方。宝藏在那里，突破的起点也在那里。
Don’t conflate uncertainty and risk — or think of it as extreme risk. Uncertainty isn’t high risk; it’s unknown risk. It is, in essence, opportunity. 不要把不确定性与风险混为一谈，也不要认为它必然是极高风险。不确定性并不是高风险，而是未知的风险；从本质上说，它是机遇。
I began with a TV show; I’ll end with a movie — the most recent Mission Impossible film released just last summer. 演讲开头我说的是一部电视剧，结尾我想谈一部电影——去年夏天上映的最新一部《碟中谍》。
The film is a daunting reminder of all that your generation is up against: complicated geopolitics, climate threats and technological pressures, and AI tools that will both simplify and complicate our world. 这部电影令人警醒，提醒我们你们这一代人面临的种种挑战：复杂的地缘政治、气候威胁、技术压力，以及既会简化也会使世界更复杂的人工智能工具。
But graduates, as I look at all of you, I see a large team of agents who are entirely capable of completing your missions. I see agents for good, agents for change. 但是，毕业生们，望着你们，我看到一支庞大的特工队伍，完全有能力完成各自的任务。我看到了行善的特工、推动改变的特工。
MIT has prepared you to tackle impossible missions. 麻省理工已为你们应对不可能的任务做好准备。
To harness the future and bend it toward the light. 去驾驭未来，让它朝着光明的方向发展。
My wish for you, my fervent hope, is that you not only choose to accept impossible missions, you embrace them. Welcome long odds. Embrace uncertainty, and lead with imagination. 我衷心祝愿、热切希望你们不仅选择接受不可能的任务，还要全心拥抱它们。欢迎胜算渺茫的挑战，拥抱不确定性，以想象力引领行动。
Approach the unknown with the courage, the confidence, and the curiosity of an immigrant. With paranoia and optimism. 带着移民的勇气、信心和好奇心走向未知。既保持警觉，也保持乐观。
And always remember the strength of working in teams. Show the world why Mission-Impossible-Team inevitably shorthands to M – I – T. 永远记住团队合作的力量。让世界明白，为什么“不可能任务团队”的英文缩写，最终正是麻省理工的缩写。
Graduates, set forth on your impossible missions. Accept them. Embrace them. The world needs you, and it’s your turn to star in the action-adventure called your life. 毕业生们，出发去完成你们不可能的任务吧。接受它们，拥抱它们。世界需要你们，现在轮到你们主演自己人生这部冒险动作片了。
Thank you. 谢谢大家。