Who's going to win—your kid or AI?

Whether you like it or not, change is here. Is your school really preparing your child for what's next?

Jun 01, 2025

“They’re going to fall through the cracks.
Education never keeps up.
We’re raising a lost generation.

I heard those words in a conversation about AI, cryptocurrency, and the future of work. The speaker’s point was that the real world is experiencing a moment of unprecedented technological adoption and education is notorious for its inability to keep up.

The next 5–7 years of graduates will enter a workforce our current education system was not built to prepare them for. This cohort will be lost.

Dramatic? Yeah.

Wrong? We don’t know, yet.

The reality is that things are never as good or bad as predicted. But, that’s not actually the point of these types of predictions. The real value in bold predictions is that they shake us out of complacent thinking.

So, if you’re already forming your counterargument to the statement above, suspend your disbelief for a moment, imagine it’s true, and let’s talk about what we should do about it.

In response to the declaration above, I landed on a singular question that might help us navigate our next steps:

What’s Your Competitive Advantage?

When the machines can do it all, what’s left for our kids? What’s their advantage going to be over machines who write perfect code, develop flawless marketing strategies, and act as fully customizable and perfect counselors?

And the answer is:

Being human.

It sounds vague and a little too hippy but let’s break the idea into three components and see if we can make it feel more concrete.

Emotional Intelligence
Ethical Judgment
Lived Experience

1. Emotional Intelligence

In a world of AI-generated content and automated communication, the ability to genuinely understand and connect with others will become a standout skill.

AI can simulate empathy.
It can read tone.
It might even mirror your mood.

But it can’t look you in the eye, hold your hand, and say,

“I know how that feels. I’ve been there too.”

As good as AI is going to get at becoming an amazing counselor, coach, and psychologist—it will never be able to create the type of feeling that a real friend or mentor can create in a moment of empathy. It will say all the right things and can act as a powerful tool, but in that moment of despair, you need more than a tool, you need someone to see you, share in the moment with you, maybe even hug you, and ultimately create that primitive feeling of connection we seek from the moment we’re born.

You know the other reason I think this becomes a huge competitive advantage?

Because there’s not many humans doing this really well either.

Think about the people in your life who are truly capable of creating this type of connection with you. The number is probably pretty small. And, that feeling they create is probably hard to explain but you know it when you feel it and you want more of that feeling.

These are skills that must be developed. They don’t come naturally to everyone.

They will be a huge competitive advantage.

2. Ethical Judgment

Here’s where things get tricky—and probably even more important.

AI can weigh pros and cons.
It can tell you what’s legal.
It can simulate a value system based on inputs.

But it can’t own the consequences.
It can’t feel remorse.
It can’t take a stand based on this kind of internal sense of right and wrong.

I was listening to Simon Sinek speak about AI and I this idea popped up:

Moral reasoning will be the last mile in every AI-assisted decision pipeline.

In a future full of smart machines, people who can sit in the tension of a complex moral decision—and lead others through it—will be very hard to replace.

3. Lived Experience:

ChatGPT can tell you everything you want to know about Rome. It can tell you exactly how many people fit in the Colosseum, why it was built, and how accurate the movie Gladiator was in depicting the carnage of the games.

But ChatGPT can’t bestow upon your sense the exact feeling that comes as you run your hands across the stones of the Colosseum as the sun sets and the breeze hits your face.

Lived experience is becoming more valuable than ever.

During college, one of my best friends would set out on a new adventure each summer while the rest of us hurried to find internships or jobs.

He kayaked around the Caribbean fishing for his food and camping on different islands.
He biked/camped across Europe.
He traveled to New Zealand with no plans. Turns out he met someone on the flight and ended up working at their vineyard.
He went down to South Africa during the World Cup where he conjured up tickets to multiple games.

I’ve always admired his willingness to step outside the typical path in pursuit of lived experiences.

“The value of your knowledge declines to near zero in an AI world. but the value of your experience, your story, and your drive increases.”
-Daniel Priestley

When you show up to the job interview someday, you’re going to want to be able to demonstrate that you know firsthand how the knowledge that’s accessible can be used to solve real problems.

You might be thinking:
“But AI will get better at simulating all of this. It’ll sound human. It’ll make ethical arguments. It’ll tell stories better than we can.”

Yeah, that’s true.

AI will get crazy good at all of it. In many contexts, we will choose the AI therapist, the AI coach, the AI resume reviewer.

But that’s exactly why we’ll crave the opposite.

We’ve seen this before:

Processed food led to a resurgence in hand-grown, slow food.
Streaming music made live concerts more sacred.
Mass-produced goods sparked a boom in Etsy-like markets and craft fairs.

When everything is optimized, what’s most prized is what’s human.

We’ll want teachers who’ve taught through heartbreak. Leaders who’ve made and learned from real mistakes. Counselors who’ve held another person’s grief—not just studied it.

In short: we’ll want the real thing.

So, the next question is: how much time is your child spending on learning to be human? Or are you still optimizing for test scores GPAs?

Ok, what’d I miss? Where do you think I’m off? How are you thinking about this? I’m interested in every perspective on this topic because the world is changing and it’s a conversation we need to be having.

Keep Asking,

Kyle