Shadowing Practice: I Let DaddyGPT Parent My Kids. Here’s What I Learned | Stephen Remedios | TED - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Right now, somewhere in the world, a manager is using ChatGPT to write a performance appraisal.
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Right now, somewhere in the world, a manager is using ChatGPT to write a performance appraisal.
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A spouse is asking a digital companion for the perfect apology text.
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A tired parent is handing over bedtime stories to a digital assistant.
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What happens when your children prefer your digital clone to the real you?
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I learned the answer to that question the hard way.
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Last summer, my wife Ray was headed on an overseas trip for a week.
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I dropped her at the airport, confident that I could manage our three teenage boys.
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After all, it was just seven days.
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By the sixth or seventh hour, I was collapsing.
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Requests for permission flowed in like a broken dam.
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Can I watch "Wednesday"?
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Can I have some more ice cream?
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Can I play another hour of Fortnite?
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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.
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By the 24th hour of Ray's departure, I was a wreck.
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Lying in bed that night after the 16th "can I?" of the day, I did what any thoughtful management consultant would do.
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In the summer of 2024, I decided to create an agentic version of myself.
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The idea was to have an AI agent that could say yes, no or go ask your mother.
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(Laughter) Now the logic was simple.
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If you did your chores, read for an hour, did math, then you got yourself to neutral territory.
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But if you were a 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.
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I was amazed by what I had created.
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At that time, I thought it was the most sophisticated AI agent in the world.
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I called it “DaddyGPT”.
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And of course, I built in guardrails because I knew some ridiculous requests were incoming.
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That evening I gathered the boys after dinner, and I made an announcement that would change our family forever.
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"When daddy is in his office, taking work calls, do not knock on his door.
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Instead ask DaddyGPT, and whatever DaddyGPT says goes.” Now my teens did exactly what you'd expect teenagers to do, right?
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They wanted to break it.
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Ethan went first.
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“Can I have 100 cans of Coke?” DaddyGPT responded correctly: “No.” Aidan went next.
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"Can we have Chipotle for lunch for all the meals while Mom's away?" DaddyGPT spat out an emotionless “nope.” Then Dylan went for the jackpot.
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“Can I have $500 for the latest Jordan sneakers?” DaddyGPT responded with an emphatic: “Nah fam.” While all this was happening, I was beaming.
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I had finally leveled up from “Dinosaur Dad” with the legal pad fossils to full-on “Rizzasaurus Rex,” finally earning some genuine street cred from my teenage sons.
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The rest of the week, not a single knock on my door.
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DaddyGPT handled all their requests for permission with logic and precision.
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But here's where the story takes an unexpected turn.
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A week later, Ray returned.
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She was amazed with the peace and calm around the house.
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Little did she know that I'd offloaded a significant chunk of my parenting responsibility to DaddyGPT.
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When she did figure out what was happening ...
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that’s a story for another day, but -- (Laughter) Suffice it to say, she didn't approve.
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To make matters worse, when we were sitting right beside the boys, they take out their phones and type their messages to DaddyGPT, invalidating us.
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Now things were coming to a head, and I couldn’t let them drift any longer.
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So I confronted Ethan one day and 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 DaddyGPT had just gifted him.
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He shrugged and said, “But daddy, DaddyGPT is never busy.” And in that moment, I realized I had just been outparented by my own algorithm.
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Ethan had come to appreciate the presence of DaddyGPT.
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He was there whenever he wanted it.
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Dylan loved that it mirrored his vibe and energy.
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Authenticity hit home with Aidan.
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He suggested that DaddyGPT sounded more like the dad I wanted to be.
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Raising the eerie question -- when a flawless replica outdads the original, which one of us is more me?
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Now I know some of you are judging me, but just hold on for a moment.
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I'm going to suggest this isn't just my story.
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This is our story.
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Time and again, we embrace technology for its promise of speed and convenience without pausing to ask: at what cost?
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We've seen the undesired side effects of social media.
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We watch young people spiral into radicalization.
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We've mourned lives lost to suicide after a final conversation with a chatbot.
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The result of algorithms optimized for engagement and profit, not joy and well-being.
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We cannot afford to make this mistake with AI.
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This moment is different.
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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.
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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.
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Be it at work or at home, when I'm working with AI now, I ask myself three questions.
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First, has a wiser human overseen this decision and approved its output?
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As a rule, I never copy-paste from an AI window to a human response window.
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That way, while AI sharpens my thinking, it's my judgment that's driving the decision.
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Second, do the humans on the other side know that they are listening to an AI and have they said yes to that exchange?
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Now there are times I'm busy.
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I travel a lot, and I have a digital version of myself for work as well.
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While my team can talk to my digital avatar, anything it says comes with the caveat that it's AI output and not me.
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I can't afford for them to confuse one with the other.
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Third, what moments of care am I about to automate and what might that automation cost me and the people I love?
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Feelings and emotions are a strict no-fly zone for AI.
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The people that I care about most have earned me with all my idiosyncrasies, flaws and messy feelings.
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After careful reflection and with my marriage on the line, I decided to retire DaddyGPT.
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The boys would have to go back to the old system, asking Ray and me.
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You should have seen their faces. Their expressions were priceless.
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You would have thought we'd taken away Wi-Fi and oxygen.
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But much to our delight, they've come to appreciate the humanity of their very human parents.
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Turns out, inconsistent, moody, slightly forgetful parenting has its own charm.
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Ironically, I learned a thing or two about being a better father from the AI part of DaddyGPT.
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To be present, to adapt, to be real.
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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.
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But also the dad who tears up at their piano recitals, their tennis games and award functions.
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Who cares deeply about the people they are growing into.
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Who pushes them to be the best version of themselves they can be.
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Because here's what I realized that summer.
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Parenting isn't about perfect responses or optimal decisions.
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Parenting is presence.
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Messy, flawed, gloriously human presence.
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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.
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Thank you. (Applause)
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Context & Background

In the TED talk "I Let DaddyGPT Parent My Kids. Here’s What I Learned," Stephen Remedios shares a humorous yet insightful experience of using artificial intelligence to assist in parenting his three teenage sons while his wife was away. Faced with an overwhelming number of requests from his children, Remedios devised a solution by creating an AI model named DaddyGPT. This digital assistant took over the task of responding to requests for permission, thereby allowing him some much-needed peace and freeing him from constant interruptions. However, this reliance on technology led to unexpected consequences, as his children began to prefer their digital assistant over their real parent. Through this narrative, Remedios highlights the challenges of parenting in the digital age and the importance of maintaining authentic connections with children.

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

  • “Can I watch ‘Wednesday’?” - A common request reflecting children's interests in popular culture.
  • “Can I have some more ice cream?” - A lighthearted request illustrating children's desire for treats.
  • “Can I play another hour of Fortnite?” - This phrase highlights the contemporary issue of screen time management.
  • “DaddyGPT, can I have 100 cans of Coke?” - Demonstrates children's exaggerated requests and their attempts to test boundaries.
  • “Can I have $500 for the latest sneakers?” - A clear depiction of teens navigating their desires against parental expectations.

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

Improving your English speaking skills can be effectively achieved through the shadowing technique. By following the steps below, you can practice the phrases from Stephen Remedios’ TED talk and enhance your fluency:

  1. Choose Your Content: Start by watching the video to familiarize yourself with the context. Select clips that focus on daily interactions or phrases that resonate with your language learning goals.
  2. Utilize a Shadowing App: Use a shadowing app or site that allows you to play the video at a slower speed. This will enable you to grasp the pronunciation and intonation more clearly.
  3. Repeat and Imitate: As you listen to the phrases being spoken, pause the video and repeat them aloud. Focus on mimicking the speaker’s tone and rhythm.
  4. Record Yourself: Record your practice sessions. Listen to the playback to identify areas of improvement in pronunciation and fluency.
  5. Engage in Real Conversations: Use these phrases in your daily communications, whether with friends or in casual conversations. The more you utilize what you’ve learned, the more natural it will become.

By consistently applying the shadowing technique and phrases from engaging content like this TED talk, you can enhance your speaking skills and gain confidence in using English in everyday situations.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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