So a while back I threw Ubuntu 22 LTS on an old Surface Pro 3 and gave it to my Dad.
He loves it, but he's the type who's been burnt by updating software in the past, so he basically refuses any whenever prompted.
Been thinking about throwing Debian with Gnome on it for a while, and wondering if it's stable enough to just let updates happen automatically in the background?
I got no experience with Debian I basically jumped right on EndeavourOS as my main distro when I started using Linux full time.
Automatic updates is what to choose if you want someone else to fix your problems. As long as you don't run into problems introduced by automatic updates, automatic updates should be fine.
Seems to be the exact question OP is asking. Except you've written it as a satabment instead of a question.