I let DaddyGPT parent my kids. Here's what I learned | Stephen Remedios

0:03You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. It's a question we ask a lot on this show. What happens when AI doesn't just help you, but also starts to replace you? Organizational strategy expert Stephen Remedios confronts this question every day. And in today's talk, he shares the wild story of a parenting experiment he conducted, where he created an AI version of himself to manage his children's constant questions and requests, but in the process accidentally made something his kids maybe preferred over the real thing.

0:42Stephen Remedios: I asked him, hey champ, why are you going to this bot when I'm right beside you? He didn't even look up from the extra screen time that daddy GPT had just gifted him. He shrugged and said, but daddy, daddy GPT is never busy. Stephen explores the hidden cost of outsourcing our humanity and why speed and efficiency shouldn't always be the goal. That's coming up right after a short break.

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3:43And now, our TED Talk of the day.

3:46Stephen Remedios: Right now, somewhere in the world, a manager is using chat GPT to write a performance appraisal. A spouse is asking a digital companion for the perfect apology text. A tired parent is handing over bedtime stories to a digital assistant. What happens when your children prefer your digital clone to the real you? I learned the answer to that question the hard way. Last summer, my wife, Ray, was headed on an overseas trip for a week. I dropped her at the airport confident that I could manage our three teenage boys. After all, it was just seven days. By the sixth or seventh hour, I was collapsing. Requests for permission flowed in like a broken dam.

4:43Stephen Remedios: Can I watch Wednesday? Can I have some more ice cream? Can I play another hour of Fortnite? night. Now, Ray and I do an excellent job of balancing the boys' busy schedules and our respective careers. But this avalanche of requests was something I had never fielded before. By the 24th hour of Ray's departure, I was a wreck. Lying in bed that night, after the 16th can I of the day, I did what any thoughtful management consultant would do. In the summer of 2024, I decided to create an agentic version of myself. The idea was to have an AI agent that could say yes, no, or go ask your mother. Now, the logic was simple.

5:43Stephen Remedios: If you did your chores, read for an hour, did math, then you got yourself to neutral territory. But if you were really good son and mowed the lawn, took the garbage out, did the dishes, then you put yourself in a position to get a yes from the digital agent. I was amazed by what I had created. At that time, I thought it was the most sophisticated AI agent in the world. I called it Daddy GPT. And of course, I built in guardrails because I knew some ridiculous requests were incoming. That evening, I gathered the boys after dinner and I made an announcement that would change our family forever. When daddy's in his office taking work calls, do not knock on his door.

6:33Stephen Remedios: Instead, ask daddy GPT and whatever daddy GPT says goes. Now, my teens did exactly what you'd expect teenagers to do, right? They wanted to break it. Ethan went first. Can I have a hundred cans of Coke? Daddy GPT responded correctly, no. Aiden went next. Can we have Chipotle for lunch for all the meals while mom's away? Daddy GPT spat out an emotionless nope. Then Dylan went for the jackpot. Can I have$500 for the latest Jordan sneakers? Daddy GPT responded with an emphatic na-fam. While all this was happening, I was beaming. I had finally leveled up from dinosaur dad with legal pad fossils to full-on Rizasaurus Rex, finally earning some genuine street cred from my teenage sons.

7:35Stephen Remedios: The rest of the week, not a single knock on my door. Daddy GPT handled all their requests for permission with logic and precision. But here's where the story takes an unexpected turn. A week later, Ray returned. She was amazed with the peace and calm around the house. Little did she know that I'd offloaded a significant chunk of my parenting responsibility to Daddy GPT. When she did figure out what was happening, that's a story for another day, but suffice it to say, she didn't approve. To make matters worse, when we were sitting right beside the boys, they take out their phones and type their messages to daddy GPT, invalidating us.

8:26Stephen Remedios: Now things were coming to a head and I couldn't let them drift any longer. So I confronted Ethan one day. I asked him, Champ, why are you going to this bot when I'm right beside you? He didn't even look up from the extra screen time that Daddy GPT had just gifted him. He shrugged and said, But Daddy, Daddy GPT is never busy. And in that moment, I realized I had just been out-parented by my own algorithm. Ethan had come to appreciate the presence of Daddy GPT. He was there whenever he wanted it. Dylan loved that it mirrored his vibe and energy. Authenticity hit home with Aidan. He suggested that Daddy GPT sounded more like the dad I wanted to be.

9:17Stephen Remedios: Raising the eerie question, when a flawless replica out-dads the original, which one of us is more me? Now, I know some of you are judging me, but just hold on for a moment. I'm going to suggest this isn't just my story. This is our story. Time and again, we embrace technology for its promise of speed and convenience without pausing to ask, at what cost? We've seen the undesired side effects of social media. We've watched young people spiral into radicalization. We've mourned lives lost to suicide after a final conversation with a chatbot. The result of algorithms optimized for engagement and profit, not joy and well-being.

10:20Stephen Remedios: We cannot afford to make this mistake with AI. This moment is different. The tools are more powerful, the stakes are higher, and the consequences, if we don't think critically, act ethically, and lead with humanity, could be catastrophic. Armed with the personal experience of an AI experiment gone horribly wrong, I'm mindful about where I use AI and where I choose not to. Be it at work or at home, when I'm working with AI now, I ask myself three questions. First, has a wiser human overseen this decision and approved its output? As a rule, I never copy-paste from an AI window to a human response window.

11:19Stephen Remedios: That way, while AI sharpens my thinking, it's my judgment that's driving the decision. Second, do the humans on the other side know that they are listening to an AI and have they said yes to that exchange? Now, there are times I'm busy, I travel a lot, and I have a digital version of myself for work as well. While my team can talk to my digital avatar, anything it says comes with the caveat that it's AI output and not me. I can't afford for them to confuse one with the other.

12:05Stephen Remedios: Third, what moments of care am I about to automate and what might that automation cost me and the people I love? Feelings and emotions are a strict no-fly zone for AI. The people that I care about most have earned me with all my idiosyncrasies, flaws, and messy feelings. After careful reflection and with my marriage on the line, I decided to retire daddy GPT. The boys would have to go back to the old system, asking Ray and me. You should have seen their faces. Their expressions were priceless. You would have thought we'd taken away Wi-Fi and oxygen. But much to our delight, they've come to appreciate the humanity of their very human parents.

13:02Stephen Remedios: Turns out, inconsistent, moody, slightly forgetful parenting, has its own charm. Ironically, I learned a thing or two about being a better father from the AI-powered daddy GPT. To be present, to adapt, to be real. Now, whenever I hear the words, can I, I want for my boys to get me. the dad who mispronounces their friends' names, who sometimes says no for no good reason, who gets increasingly unpredictable as the day goes on, but also the dad who tears up at their piano recitals, their tennis games and award functions, who cares deeply about the people they're growing into, who pushes them to be the best version of themselves they can be.

14:06Stephen Remedios: Because here's what I realized that summer. Parenting isn't about perfect responses or optimal decisions. Parenting is presence. Messy, flawed, gloriously human presence. In a world racing toward digital perfection, being authentically, imperfectly human isn't just important. It's the one thing only we can do. And it might just be the most radical act of love we have left to offer. Thank you.

14:58That was Stephen Rebedios at TED at BCG in Dubai in 2025. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tonsika Sungmarnivong. This episode was mixed by Christopher Fazey-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

15:54sharp dialogue, and scenario-based analysis, our leading experts analyze key market themes each week. So whether you're managing a portfolio or leading a business, the Barclays Brief podcast can help you make smarter decisions today. Stay sharp. Stay brief. Find Barclays Brief wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, hosted by Katie Milkman, an award-winning behavioral scientist. and author of bestselling book, How to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Hear true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes, and everyday people about why we do the things we do.

16:39Listen to Choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen. I recently had comedian and host of Ted's How to Be a Better Human podcast, Chris Duffy, on our show. He sat down for a special interview where he talked about how to laugh more at the little things in life. One of the ways that we take the least social risk is in conversations with people we don't know that well. We tend to just say like, so how are you? What do you do? There's no risk involved. And as a result, it's very unlikely that you and the other person will like laugh or connect. So I think you can take like a low risk thing and ask them a question that's just a little unusual, but that you actually are interested in or is a little funny.

17:17Now, the person might be like, this is weird. Why are you asking me about terrible soups? But you'll probably have a conversation that is a little bit more memorable and funny and has the potential for laughter than other things. Get more practical tips on how to be the best you can be by listening to Chris interview Ted Speakers on his podcast, How to Be a Better Human. Listen wherever you get your shows.