Translation rights
For foreign publishers and literary agents. Translation rights available in all languages except English and Spanish.
Download the one-page rights sheet (PDF)
The book
An essay about what happens in a family when an AI humanoid robot comes into the home: our kids, our aging parents, and ourselves. Every fact in the book is linked to its source in a glossary at the end. It opens with a scene: one night the author yelled at his nine-year-old son and, the next morning, told the AI on his phone instead of his wife.
Book details
| Title | The Tireless Parent |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | What Happens to Our Kids, Our Parents, and Ourselves When AI Humanoid Robots Come Home |
| Author | Hugo Alder (pen name) |
| Genre | Narrative nonfiction essay |
| Editions | English: The Tireless Parent Spanish: El padre incansable. Robots humanoides en casa, inteligencia artificial y lo que entregamos cuando estamos cansados |
| Publication | November 16, 2026, both editions · Amazon · independently published |
| Formats | Kindle eBook · Paperback · Hardcover |
| Print length | English edition: 152 pages Spanish edition: 158 pages 5.5 × 8.5 in |
| ISBN | English: paperback 9798165121104 · hardcover 9798164604837 Spanish: paperback 9798165125140 · hardcover 9798164606213 |
| Sources | A glossary at the end links every fact to its original source: more than 350. |
| Sample | Introduction + first half of Chapter 1: English PDF · Spanish PDF |
Contents
- Introduction · The Hallway Manifesto in the Age of Superintelligence
- 1 · The Speed of Synthetic Empathy
- 2 · The Marginal Cost of Affection
- 3 · The Dining Table: The Work Nobody Paid For
- 4 · Comfort vs. Guilt, and Status Parenting
- Interlude · A Function That Isn’t Mine
- 5 · The Valley of Trust: Design and Hyperrealism
- 6 · The Legislative Trench and the Two Speeds
- 7 · The Synthetic Generation
- 8 · The Revolution for Synthetic Rights
- Epilogue · The Refuge of the Imperfect
Audience
General readers of narrative nonfiction, and families: the book is about what will happen inside a family when the humanoid robot walks through the door, for our kids, our aging parents, and ourselves. It isn’t a book about fear, and it isn’t a manual.
What makes it different
Every fact in the book links to the page where it was published. It is the essay of a father who makes his living creating characters for children.
Before publication, every researcher and organization cited received the passage in which their work appears. Prof. Katja Schlegel (University of Bern) reviewed and confirmed in writing the passage in Chapter 1, and two other cited researchers confirmed theirs as well. Dr. Julie Carpenter provided factual corrections concerning the description of her research (Chapter 8). Acknowledgments
Rights available
Translation rights available in all languages except English and Spanish. World rights are held by the author.
Comparable titles
- Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (Basic Books, 2011). Excerpt
- Kate Darling, The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots (Henry Holt, 2021). Publishers Weekly
Contact
hugo@hugoalder.com