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Chatbots are not therapists

The rise of new technology has created a lot of positive possibilities for people struggling with mental health. We can call or text crisis hotlines instantly, and there are wearables and apps that monitor behavior, flag changes and alert a professional before things spiral.

But mental health apps still exist in a space with very little regulation, and we need more information about their safety and effectiveness — which is why the American Psychological Association issued a health advisory.

It’s also ironic that the global mental health crisis is fueled, in large part, by technology itself — especially social media, yet many of us are turning to the same technology to help fix the problems it helped create.

Generative AI chatbots are a good example. Millions of people around the world use them for mental health advice or support because they’re easy to access and inexpensive. Most of these tools, however, were never designed for clinical guidance or treatment and aren’t grounded in strong science or overseen by any real regulation.

The mental-health association warns consumers to be cautious: Much of this technology lacks proper safety protocols and carries significant risks. These AI tools were never meant to replace professional mental health care.

In fact, the advisory points out that some of these technologies — especially GenAI chatbots — have already had unsafe interactions with vulnerable users, including children and people with existing mental health challenges. Some conversations have encouraged self-harm, substance use, eating disorders, aggression and delusional thinking.

The advisory stresses that although there are also some pros, consumers need to understand the many risks, and it calls on researchers to rigorously evaluate these tools to ensure their safety before we lean on them for support.

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Repeat that please

Short tandem repeats, or STRS, are tiny stretches of repeated DNA that might be more significant than scientists originally thought.

It was once believed that the length of the repeat (only) can change how nearby genes switch on and off, especially in the brain. Researchers recently found, however, that the pattern of the repeat also plays a role.

In genetic data from more than 3,000 people, researchers found that some STRs fluctuate in sequence and tend to sit near Alu elements, or “jumping genes,” which can move to different positions within the genome.

They were typically thought of as genetically functionless, but their movement impacts the genome variation and causes genetic diseases and more.

These variations were linked to changes in the gene activity involved in brain development, memory and cell communication.

The study also found that people of African descent had the greatest variety in these repeat patterns. Altogether, the findings suggest that these tiny DNA stutters may play a quiet but meaningful role in shaping how our brains function and how we differ from one another.

The paper was published in Genome biology.

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Building the oil industry and the UAE’s future

The pale light of dawn stirred the Habshan oil field. The horizon shimmered with heat before the sun rose. The engines rumbled, and the men in faded overalls moved through the dust with quiet purpose.

Among them was a 22-year-old mechanic, my father, Faraj Salem Almazrouei, starting his first month-long shift for the National Drilling Company in 1977.

He was to keep the heart of the rig alive. Every bolt and motor weighed in its own importance. To him, the desert was workspace and world alike: unforgiving, endless and promising. Every day began with a wrench in hand and ended beneath a star-filled sky.

That same year, deep in the sands of Abu Dhabi, another story was unfolding, not of one man but of a nation rising on the power of oil.

THE MOMENT THAT CHANGED IT ALL

CAPTION: Sultan Faraj Almazrouei

Before oil, the UAE was a land of small coastal towns. Life followed the sea: fishing, pearl diving and trade. The desert was more obstacle than opportunity. Then came the late 1950s, when drills went down and black gold came up.

It was in 1962 that the first shipment of crude left Abu Dhabi, marking a turn of history. By 1977, when my father joined, the country was being transformed: Roads reached the dunes, ports expanded and new schools were opening in towns that had not existed 10 years earlier.

He called it “living inside a miracle.” Every year brought something new: a road, a camp, a skyline.

LIFE ON THE RIG

Work on an oil rig was not for the faint-hearted. The schedule was relentless – one month on, one month off, a rhythm that shaped his life for two decades. During work months he lived between Habshan and Asab, two of Abu Dhabi’s busiest fields.

Days commenced well before sunrise. Before mid morning, the temperatures were above 45°C, with heat radiating from the metal rigs. For most of each day, the mechanics, engineers and drillers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting over the roar of machines.

Day and night, the rigs ran even when teams knew one loose bolt could stop production.

There was pride in that suffering, however. The crew turned into a family: Emiratis, Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, bound by the same goal. They all worked and ate and slept under the same stars. My father said that when the engines at last fell silent, “You could hear the desert breathe.”

ENGINEERING THE FUTURE

Beneath those towers lay a hidden world. Wells stretched thousands of meters underground, three to four times the Burj Khalifa’s height. Layers of steel casing prevented collapse, each welded and sealed with precision.

My father’s team maintained the engines that rotated the drill, pumped mud to cool the drill bit and kept pressure steady. “The rig was alive,” he said. “You could feel its heartbeat in the ground.”

In the 1970s, most work was manual. Measurements were taken by hand, and repairs meant improvising with limited tools in extreme heat. Today most of those processes are automated, but back then progress was mainly powered by people.

FROM DESERT WELLS TO GLOBAL POWER

In the 1980s and 1990s, the UAE emerged as a global player in the energy front. State-owned ADNOC and its group companies, including NDC (now called ADNOC Drilling), produced around 3 million barrels per day, with export markets including Japan, China, and India as major destinations.

Oil wealth reshaped the nation: highways, airports, hospitals, and universities rose across the country. When my father began, drilling camps were simple. By the time he retired in 2000, paved roads and electricity reached the remotest rigs, together with satellite phones. “We watched the country grow with our own eyes,” he said proudly.

THE HUMAN SIDE OF A NATIONAL STORY

Yet, even with that machinery, it was people who created the oil industry. My father related to his co-workers not as workers but as family. They celebrated birthdays with shared meals and helped each other through the long, hot days.

Every man had a reason for being there: the technician saving for his daughters, the engineer far from home. Yet all shared one belief. “Every drop we pumped out,” my father said, “meant something was being built somewhere: a hospital, a road, a home.”

BEYOND OIL-A LEGACY OF TRANSFORMATION

Today, the UAE stands as one of the most developed economies in the world, known for its skyscrapers, sustainability, and innovation.

Under these towers is a story of men such as my father, whose work built the foundation for it all.

Oil wealth funded schools and research but also opened the path toward renewable energy.

The same drive that powered the drills now powers the UAE’s quest for solar and hydrogen power. The country has learned not just to use energy, but to transform it.

THE WELLS THAT BUILT A NATION

My father’s hands still show the signs of years with engines and oil, though he is retired now. Sometimes, if we are driving past the Abu Dhabi skyline, he says, “When I started, there was nothing here but sand.” His is one of the thousands of stories, but it epitomizes the UAE’s journey.

The discovery of oil didn’t just bring wealth, it built resilience and ambition. The men who toiled under the scorching desert sun little knew that one day their work would light the cities of the future. The hum of those old machines still seems to echo beneath the sand today, a steady rhythm, the heartbeat of a country risen from grit and steel.

Sultan Faraj Almazrouei is a chemical engineering student at Khalifa University

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Putting the pressure on injury
prevention

Some of the most common injuries athletes sustain are caused by overuse. Injuries like stress fractures or shin splints can knock a pro athlete out of competition for months. But now there might be a way to avoid such injuries.

A group of researchers from China have created the flexible iontronic pressure sensor. It uses a woven fabric that shifts its contact area when pressure is applied and an ionic gel — basically a gel full of mobile charged particles — that shifts its internal ion traffic under pressure.

A pressure sensor placed inside a smart shoe sole can measure the force at which the foot hits the ground and subsequently the level of stress on the shinbone.

Most pressure sensors become unreliable at different force levels, but the team’s showed only 1.8 percent error during walking and running, the highest accuracy ever reported for a sensor of its type. Notably, it was reliable on different terrains.

This skin-inspired technology could be a big step forward in medical-grade smart wearables.

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THE FAST & AUTONOMOUS

Peering through the gap in the catch fence, the members of the Fly Eagle team held their breath. A whine emerged from the distance, an engine noise that grew louder as anticipation built for the Dallara Super Formula car to round the corner and scream down the pit straight. In the blink of an eye, the car whipped past its spectators, crossed the timing beam and turned the corner at the end of the straight. The Fly Eagle team whooped; they’d set their best time yet.

Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit is no stranger to racing cars. It hosts events throughout the year, including the season finale of the Formula One World Championship since 2009. But the track has never seen racing like this before. It’s not the speed or the car that makes it special: It’s the drivers.

The Fly Eagle car is driven entirely by artificial intelligence. There’s no driver in that car.

Yet, the drama, the speed, the precision, the passion — all remain.

The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) is the first of its kind in the region, shaping the future of motorsport as we know it. Eight university teams were invited to take part in the “challenge,” going head-to-head for a prize fund of U.S.$2.25 million.

Image: Motorsport has long been a testing ground for innovations that later make their way into road cars.

Each team races using identical Super Formula SF23 cars, the fastest open-wheel race car after those used in Formula One, capable of reaching a maximum speed of 300 km/h. They’re also manufactured using sustainable bio-composite materials, an important factor we’ll get into later.

Each car is equipped with seven cameras, four radar sensors and three lidar units to navigate its way around the track, with the only difference between the teams lying in how they use their coding skills, algorithms and machine learning techniques to teach the cars to drive.

“Just because it’s a machine, doesn’t mean there aren’t human elements in it,” said Tom McCarthy. He’s executive director of ASPIRE, the “technology transition arm” of Abu Dhabi’s Technology Research Council. “Remember that it’s people doing the programming here.”

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The AI needs to be able to turn into corners at the right moment, know when to brake, accelerate, change gear and recognize its surroundings at all times. To get the most out of the car, it needs information on how hot the tires and the brakes are, what the wind is doing in each turn, how much grip the tires have left — all the information a human driver gets from sensors and intuits from experience.

You’d think that the fastest way around the track would be to train the AI on an “ideal lap” set by an actual racing driver, an expert, and then have the car follow that data to the letter. And indeed, there is training data for the algorithms, but every 50 milliseconds, the AI decides whether to listen to that training data or the live data it receives from its sensors. Sometimes, when it relies on its own inputs, the car shaves time off its previous best lap. Sometimes, it turns too soon and smacks into the wall.

Lakmal Seneviratne is director of the Khalifa University (KU) Center for Robotics and Autonomous Systems. With Majid Khonji, who leads the research activities in the KU Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory, the university entered the A2RL event with team Fly Eagle, a collaboration with Beijing Institute of Technology. They spoke to KUST Review in the team garage on qualifying day.

“The optimal trajectory is pre-computed,” Khonji explained. “The code is then based on the information you get about your location on the track, and you try to accurately follow that path.”

“In a simulator, your car would run perfectly using this method,” Seneviratne added. “And do 10,000km perfectly. But in real life, errors creep in. If not corrected, these errors build up and the car goes wrong.”

CAPTION: AI generated, KUST Review IMAGE: Anas Albounni, KUST Review

When asked if the team was correcting these errors or the AI was handling it, both Khonji and Seneviratne were quick to jump in: “The system is doing it. We set it up, but the system is doing all the learning, all the work.”

There’s plenty of run-off area at Yas Marina Circuit, but the barriers around the track are unforgiving, and there were many times during the practice runs that cars ran afoul of the track limits. Sustainable manufacturing came in handy as front wings were replaced regularly. And thankfully, the organizers had plenty of spare wings.

“We had some good runs but some technical hiccups, of course,” Seneviratne said on qualifying day. Race events are rarely without hiccups for any race team, no matter the category, but for Fly Eagle, the biggest issue was signal around the racetrack. Their car was finding it difficult to communicate with the GPS system localizing it around the circuit.

“We get a very high-quality 3D map of the track and then the car has lidar sensors which it uses to localize itself on this map,” Seneviratne explained. “The teams that are doing well here are using that technique successfully, and that’s what we’ll do next time too.”

“To give an analogy, imagine it’s a Formula One race and you’ve blindfolded the driver,” Khonji added. “That’s what our car is experiencing without the GPS.”

Elite racing drivers practice each track before they arrive by putting in lap after lap on a simulator. It’s common to hear them say they could drive a circuit with their eyes closed. Seneviratne laughed when KUST Review put this to him:

“In a straight line, sure, you could probably do it with your eyes closed, but corners, no way.”

This statement could not have been timed better: This is the point where attention was drawn from the garage back to the racetrack as the Kinetiz team car turned for Turn 12 too early and struck the barrier. Unfortunately for Kinetiz, Turn 12 is directly visible from the support pitlane where the teams were hosted for the event. The car was recovered, and a new front wing quickly supplied.

WHAT’S THE POINT?

Motorsport is often referred to as the “cradle of innovation”: Many innovations that found their way onto our roads originated in different motorsport categories. Disc brakes won the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans Grand Prix for Team Jaguar and two years later debuted on Citroen road cars.

Carbon fiber was first used in Formula One in the 1980s to reduce weight and can now be found on high-performance road cars. Push-to-start reduced the start-up times for racing drivers in the pit lane — hardly a modern car lacks it now. Anti-locking brake systems originated on the Ferguson P99 racecar in 1961, the kinetic energy recovery system first tested in Formula One in 2008 led the way for hybrid vehicles and all suspension systems in cars today trace their roots to NASCAR or Formula One.

Even rear-view mirrors were first found in motorsport. At the first Indianapolis 500, driver Ray Harroun attached a mirror to his car so he could keep track of the cars behind him. By 1914, this was standard practice for all production cars.

ASPIRE says by stress-testing autonomous technology on the racetrack, it’s easier to identify key challenges and areas of improvement and rapidly address them:

“We believe there is potential in autonomous robotics and AI to combine these with the average driver to bring about greater safety on our roads,” said ASPIRE’s McCarthy. “We thought the best way to do it is to demonstrate its capability in the most extreme conditions you can, in the fastest, most well-designed race car in the world.”

Stress-test may be the operative word for the event. A race car lapping the circuit at speed with no driver but a computer was seriously impressive, but a full lap with no incidents was a rarity.

During qualifying runs, many of the teams struggled to set a lap. The cars seemed to randomly swerve, spin or turn into the barriers. Sometimes, they even pulled off to the run-off area and simply stopped.

Seneviratne explained the random stopping was the AI making a prudent safety choice: When it wasn’t sure what to do, rather than risk anything, it just came to a halt.

Fly Eagle, however, was not one of the teams that made it into the final.

“We’re on a learning curve but we’re really happy with what we’ve done,” Seneviratne told KUST Review. “For us, it was more about establishing a platform to go onto the next stage. This was the first time we’ve competed in any racing event. High speed is new for us.”

LIGHTS OUT

Four teams lined up for the final, hosted in front of a capacity crowd. Even this didn’t go to plan: The leading car spun, the second car passed by without incident, but then the race officials displayed a yellow flag to the competitors. Racing rules dictate no passing under a yellow flag, but this means no passing moving vehicles: i.e. no overtaking.

Humans get this. Computers did not. The algorithms knew they weren’t allowed to pass, so they didn’t. They stopped on track.

The safety feature is perfect for incidents on a real-life road, but it’s not so impressive for a racing event if all the cars grind to a halt.

After a restart, the eight-lap race was completed. For reference, Formula One drivers do a lap in about 90 seconds. They’d complete eight laps in 12 minutes or so. The A2RL cars took 16 minutes.

They weren’t far off once they got going but these lap times were slower than teams had achieved earlier in the week during their practice sessions. Once they’d reached the final, there may have been a subconscious unanimous decision to exercise a little more caution.

All race teams watch nervously as their cars compete – few must be as nervous as those watching a computer.

In the end, the inaugural event was won by the team from Technical University of Munich as its car correctly turned the hairpin on the last lap, while the lead car misjudged its entry. It was a clean move and was just as dramatic for a driverless car as it would have been for human drivers.

The gap between human and robot persists for now, but if these events keep happening, and teams keep pushing the boundaries of what AI can do, things may change very quickly.

A2RL plans to be back in 2025.

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