Side-By-Side Advice (Human vs AI)

Help kids explore the gap — and overlap.

In a recent conversation, a colleague shared one of his greatest fears these days:

“I worry that soon, my son will be going to an AI instead of me when he needs life advice.”

That statement felt familiar, but hearing him say it shook my core, because it plainly surfaced what is complicated about both the promise and the dangers of an AI as a companion.

Later that week, our oldest daughter asked for help finding a summer internship. She lacked a place to start and felt worried that roles will be just too hard to find these days.

Both experiences got us talking about the power of advice and the experience of advice exchange. And, it occurred to us that advice giving and receiving could be a rich context for exploring and noticing the overlaps and differences between interactions with AI and other humans.

Prototyping the idea

We talked to our oldest, and we started to wonder together. How could AI be helpful, and how could people be helpful in guiding her process? How would the experience and the quality of the advice vary between AI-sourced and human-sourced advice?

Then, she hopped on it. She identified two trusted people with extensive lived experience to talk with IRL: her grandfather and a family friend. We also encouraged her to check in with Claude.ai. How would each of these sources suggest she go about finding, evaluating, and ideally securing a summer internship that matched her interests?

She had fruitful sessions with both humans as well as with Claude. Afterwards, we talked with her as she reflected on, compared and contrasted the different experiences. We also checked in with her human helpers, too.

What we found

Our daughter had plenty to say about the positives. On the AI side, seeking advice was clearly faster and required less “social energy.” Claude also gave her a greater variety of ways to approach the search. In her words, “The AI gave me a bunch of ideas about how to think about it.”

On the flip side, she shared that, once any awkwardness faded, the human conversations felt more “interesting” and “just more inspiring.” When we asked for her to elaborate, she shared several insights, including, “when you’re looking at someone, you kind of hear what they’re saying more.” She also shared, “They had actually lived their stories, so maybe that’s why they were just more interesting. And, I guess, a little more believable…like, their stories made it easier to believe it could work out for me.”

She learned, for example, that our family friend had not been able to find a job when he was young, so he wrote letters introducing himself, including references, and dropped them off at different businesses in town. One shop owner was impressed and gave him a call, then a job. Though letter writing is a little (a lot) old-school, it did inspire her to think about ways she could make personal contact, stand out and appeal to places she really wanted to work.

Her grandfather shared insights but also showed great interest in what kinds of jobs, in the near term and long term, got her excited. The conversation became a great opportunity for her to explore new questions about herself–and how great to do so with someone who is and will always be her forever fan. He also encouraged her to see any opportunity as a way to develop her skills, helping her to dial down the pressure to find the ideal summer gig.

In the end, we didn’t generate a hard list of rules for “when to use an AI and when to go human.” But we had rich conversations about how the two compared, and how they felt different. And we’re hopeful that this kind of thought exercise is exactly what builds the muscles our kids need to notice and navigate what AI and human interaction, independently, each have to offer.

Ongoing

As new questions pop up for her or our other kids, I’ve noticed that we are more likely to talk about which source(s) of advice would be a fit? At dinner, we’ve also tossed out a question or two and talked about whether, to us, they felt like questions for AI, humans, or both.

Different kids even have different perspectives on the same question — a nice reminder that it’s the thinking process that builds the muscle, not hard and fast rules.

Your turn

When your kid needs advice, consider suggesting a similar side-by-side approach. This could include a life decision or things like how to: better understand something they’re learning at school; make something they’ve never made before; or approach a tricky situation with siblings or friends (or even you!).

Help them identify at least one trusted person to talk with (it may or may not be you). And, if they need it, help them craft a prompt for the LLM of choice (Large Language Model, e.g. Claude.ai).

Afterwards, chat with them and ask questions like:

• What did you take away from each advice session?

• How was the advice from the AI and the human similar? different?

• How did each experience feel different for you? What do you think made each feel that way?

The “advice-giving effect”

Perhaps the best part for all involved was the recognition that asking a human for advice brings with it so much more than information. Both grandfather and family friend really enjoyed the conversation. And, unsolicited, they have both followed up to see how the job search is going.

As all of this was going on, I was reading Mattering by Jennifer B. Wallace, a marvelous exploration of our universal human need to be seen and valued for our contributions. In the book, Wallace points out the reciprocal value of advice seeking and giving.

“When we ask someone for advice, we affirm their value. Psychologists call this the “advice-giving effect” — when someone shares wisdom, they feel more appreciated and more competent.”

When we turn to a human, we not only get the benefit of a rich answer, we fill that human’s bucket. And, we strengthen the bond between us.

Older people especially can feel like their contributions are undervalued in our society. When we ask them to share their wisdom with us, we are making a conscious choice to counteract that flaw in our social fabric. We demonstrate that they matter. What a gift to each of us involved.

At least for now, no AI can replicate that.