UL’s Prof Pepijn van de Ven discusses his research, which involves using simple AI models to benefit mental health interventions.

The topic of AI’s use in healthcare has been prevalent in the world of tech recently.

Last month, prominent generative AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic both launched dedicated healthcare-focused services for their respective chatbots.

While both features – ChatGPT Health and Claude for Healthcare – were developed to assist users with tasks such as understanding test results and preparing for appointments, some are looking at the potential of AI in more focused areas of the healthcare umbrella.

One such researcher is Prof Pepijn van de Ven, a professor in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at University of Limerick (UL).

With a background in electronic engineering – and a PhD in artificial intelligence – van de Ven is currently the course leader of Ireland’s National Master’s in AI, delivered by UL in close collaboration with ICT Skillnet, as well as the founding director of UL’s D2iCE research centre, which conducts research into AI development and deployment with ethical, sustainable and trustworthy use of AI in society at its core.

Currently, van de Ven’s research focuses on the use of AI in mental health interventions.

“I’ve been very lucky and have had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the trailblazers in what we call internet interventions, which is any intervention delivered via the web,” he tells SiliconRepublic.com.

“In the last 15 years, I have contributed to research programmes which focused on the use of smart technologies in the delivery of mental health interventions with partners across Europe, Australia, North and South America, and of course also Ireland.”

He explains that the contributions he and his team have made to these projects revolve around using artificial intelligence to improve the delivery of said interventions.

“For example, we have shown that AI can do the time-consuming screening of patients that a clinician would otherwise have to do, thus freeing up that person for contact with patients,” he says. “Such screening interviews tend to use a battery of questionnaires that can be a real burden on patients. We do a lot of work around analysing the questionnaires typically used in mental health during screening to see if these can be shortened.”

‘We’ll need to think very carefully about the use of AI wherever we consider its use to prevent unintended consequences.’

Benefits and caution

Van de Ven considers his research important because of its potential to assist an area of healthcare that has long suffered from a lack of proper attention.

“Unfortunately, there is still a massive stigma on mental health and services tend to be under-resourced.  The well-considered use of AI has the potential to reduce thresholds to access in these services and can also make the provision of these services more efficient.

“As our population ages, the need for healthcare services, including, of course, mental healthcare services, will only increase. I think it’s a simple fact that the only way we can ensure high quality services for everybody is through the use of AI.”

One misconception he says people have about his work is the belief that “AI equates to generative technologies such as ChatGPT”.

“This misconception, given all the remarkable advances with generative AI, has led to a lot of hesitance around the use of AI,” he says. “The models that we use are really simple compared to ChatGPT.”

He explains that by using simple AI models within such a sensitive area, the risk of harm to patients is lessened – adding that he cautions against the use of generative AI and large language models to replace human staff in services such as counselling.

“We should be very careful,” he says. “I am a proponent of the careful use of AI to support healthcare providers in their roles and to allow them to spend more time with patients where possible.

“We’ve all heard the stories of people using generative models such as ChatGPT to discuss their mental health issues and really confiding in these AI models. And unfortunately, this has led to catastrophic outcomes in some cases.”

For instance, in December OpenAI was sued over claims that ChatGPT encouraged a man with mental illness to kill his mother and himself.

“As it stands, we cannot guarantee how a generative model will respond to a prompt and for this reason such use requires further research and careful testing before it can become mainstream.

“Although any AI model can cause harm just like most other technologies, the simple models we develop help with a very narrow task and often do so in a way that can be understood by a clinician,” he says. “As a result, their capability to do harm is limited and well understood.”

Personae

One project that van de Ven and his team is involved with – as the only non-Danish partner, he adds – is the Personae project, which aims to adapt a fully online mental health service already used in the Danish healthcare system to a “so-called stepped care model”, according to van de Ven.

He explains that this model presents support for patients across three different steps, or levels.

At the lowest level, patient engagement is self-directed, while the second level incorporates a blended approach where patients have access to self-directed treatment, while also being able to avail of a therapist in online sessions.

The last step or level is the “traditional approach”, he says, where patients see a therapist for every session, albeit through an online format.

“The expectation is that this stepped-care approach will result in more efficient use of healthcare resources and thus an opportunity to treat more people with the available resources,” he says. “Our role in this project is to create AI models that can predict what type of intervention a patient requires based on assessing the information people provide when they enter the service.

“Down the line, the hope is that our models can also inform what step in the stepped care model a patient should receive.”

In terms of current progress of Personae, van de Ven tells us that his project partners in Denmark have created a new intervention that is suitable for delivery on these three different levels, as well as a brand-new mobile platform to support delivery of the intervention.

“After two years of hard work, the trial was started recently and it’s going well. In the very near future we hope to receive lots of interesting data to improve the performance of our AI models further.”

Speaking of the future, what are van de Ven’s hopes for the long-term impact of his work?

“I’m hopeful that we can do right by mental health patients and their loved ones by improving the services provided to them,” he says. “Internet interventions and AI will play an important role in this process, but AI is very much a double-edged sword.

“We’ll need to think very carefully about the use of AI wherever we consider its use to prevent unintended consequences.”

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The AgreeTo add-in for Outlook has been hijacked and turned into a phishing kit that stole more than 4,000 Microsoft account credentials.

Originally a legitimate meeting scheduling tool for Outlook users, the module was developed by an independent publisher and has been on the Microsoft Office Add-in Store since December 2022.

Office add-ins are just URLs pointing to content loaded into Microsoft products from the developer’s server. In the case of AgreeTo, the developer used a Vercel-hosted URL (outlook-one.vercel.app) but abandoned the project, despite the userbase it formed.

However, the add-in continued to be listed on Microsoft’s store, and a threat actor claimed its orphaned URL to plant a phishing kit.

According to researchers at supply-chain security company Koi say that the threat actor taking over the project deployed a fake Microsoft sign-in page, a password collection page, an exfiltration script, and a redirect.

It is worth noting that once an add-in is in the Microsoft store, there is no further verification process. When submitting a module, Microsoft reviews the manifest file and signs it for approval.

AgreeTo had already been reviewed and approved, and loaded all the resources – user interface and everything the user interacts with, from the developer’s server, now under the control of the threat actor.

Koi researchers discovered the compromise and accessed the attacker’s exfiltration channel. They found that over 4,000 Microsoft account credentials had been stolen, along with credit card numbers and banking security answers.

The add-in was present in the store until today, when Microsoft removed it. Koi researchers say that the threat actor was actively testing stolen credentials during their examination.

When users opened the  malicious AgreeTo add-in in Outlook, instead of the scheduling interface, they would see a fake Microsoft login page in the program’s sidebar, which can easily be mistaken for a legitimate login prompt.

Any account credentials entered there are exfiltrated via a Telegram bot API to the attackers, while victims are then redirected to the real Microsoft login page to reduce suspicion.

It is noted that the add-in retained ReadWriteItem permissions, enabling it to read and modify user emails, though no such activity was confirmed.

Koi Security found that the operator behind this attack runs at least a dozen additional phishing kits targeting internet service providers, banks, and webmail providers.

While malicious add-ins aren’t new, we have previously seen such tools promoted via spam forum comments, phishing emails, and malvertising. The case of AgreeTo stands out, though, as it is likely the first to be hosted on Microsoft’s Marketplace.

Koi Security researcher Oren Yomtov told BleepingComputer that this is the first malware found on the official Microsoft Marketplace and the first malicious Outlook add-in detected in the wild.

If you still have AgreeTo installed on Outlook, you are recommended to remove it immediately and reset your passwords. BleepingComputer has contacted Microsoft for a comment on Koi researchers’ findings, but we are still waiting for a response.

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OpenAI has started testing ads in ChatGPT for US users across both the Free and Go subscription tiers. However, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers remain ad‑free.

Needless to say, it has rattled quite a number of people using the service.

To understand the change, consider OpenAI’s mission: ChatGPT serves hundreds of millions of users for learning, work, and daily decisions. Running Free and Go tiers requires heavy infrastructure and investment. Ads help fund that work, supporting broader access to AI features at lower cost.

However, OpenAI is keen to point out that ads do not influence answers. Responses remain independent and optimised for user needs, with sponsored content appearing clearly labelled and visually separated from organic answers. This design aims to ensure transparency and preserve trust in ChatGPT’s output.

• Conner’s Pocket Cloud fits in a pocket while handling phone backups effectively
• Dual USB-C ports allow for simultaneous charging and data transfer
• Users can record 4K video directly to removable microSD storage

Conner, the company which has previously launched 1.8-inch, 2.5-inch, and 3.5-inch hard drives, has shifted focus to mobile storage with its new Pocket Cloud.

This device is designed to provide portable, on-the-go storage for smartphones without relying on traditional cloud subscriptions.

During times of political turmoil, history often gets rewritten, erased, or lost. That is what happened to the legacy of Jan Czochralski, a Polish chemist whose contributions to semiconductor manufacturing were expunged after World War II.

In 1916 he invented a method for growing single crystals of semiconductors, metals, and synthetic gemstones. The process, now known as the Czochralski method, allows scientists to have more control over a semiconductor’s quality.

After the war ended, Czochralski was falsely accused by the Polish government of collaborating with the Germans and betraying his country, according to an article published by the International Union of Crystallography. The allegation apparently ended his academic career as a professor at the Warsaw University of Technology and led to the erasure of his name and work from the school’s records.

He died in 1953 in obscurity in his hometown of Kcynia.

The Czochralski method was honored in 2019 with an IEEE Milestone for enabling the development of semiconductor devices and modern electronics. Administered by the IEEE History Center and supported by donors, the Milestone program recognizes outstanding technical developments around the world.

Inspired by the IEEE recognition, Czochralski’s grandson Fred Schmidt and his great-grandnephew Sylwester Czochralski launched the JanCZ project. The initiative, which aims to educate the public about Czochralski’s life and scientific impact, maintains two websites—one in English and the other in Polish.

“Discovering the [IEEE Milestone] plaque changed my entire mission,” Schmidt says. “It inspired me to engage with Poland, my family history, and my grandfather’s story [on] a more personal level. The [Milestone] is an important award of validation and recognition. It’s a big part of what I’m building my entire case and my story around as I promote the Jan Czochralski legacy and history to the Western world.”

Schmidt, who lives in Texas, is seeking to produce a biopic, translate a Polish biography to English, and turn the chemist’s former homes in Kcynia and Warsaw into museums. The Jan Czochralski Remembrance Foundation has been established by Schmidt to help fund the projects.

The life of the Polish chemist

Before Czochralski’s birth in 1885, Kcynia became part of the German Empire in 1871. Although his family identified as Polish and spoke the language at home, they couldn’t publicly acknowledge their culture, Schmidt says.

When it came time for Czochralski to go to university, rather than attend one in Warsaw, he did what many Germans did at the time: He attended one in Berlin.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in metal chemistry in 1907 from the Königlich Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), he joined Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft in Berlin as an engineer.

Czochralski experimented with materials to find new formulations that could improve the electrical cables and machinery during the early electrical age, according to a Material World article.

While investigating the crystallization rates of metal, Czochralski accidentally dipped his pen into a pot of molten tin instead of an inkwell. A tin filament formed on the pen’s tip—which he found interesting. Through research, he proved that the filament was a single crystal. His discovery prompted him to experiment with the bulk production of semiconductor crystals.

His paper on what he called the Czochralski method was published in 1918 in the German chemistry journal Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie, but he never found an application for it. (The method wasn’t used until 1948, when Bell Labs engineers Gordon Kidd Teal and J.B. Little adapted it to grow single germanium crystals for their semiconductor production, according to Material World.)

Czochralski continued working in metal science, founding and directing a research laboratory in 1917 at Metallgesellschaft in Frankfurt. In 1919 he was one of the founding members of the German Society for Metals Science, in Sankt Augustin. He served as its president until 1925.

Around that time he developed an innovation that led to his wealth and fame, Schmidt says. Called “B-metal,” the metal alloy was a less expensive alternative to the tin used in manufacturing railroad carriage bearings. Czochralski’s alloy was patented by the German railway Deutsche Bahn and played a significant role in advancing rail transport in Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, according to Material World.

“Launching this initiative has been fulfilling and personally rewarding work. My grandfather died in obscurity without ever seeing the results of his work, and my mother spent her entire adult life trying to right these wrongs.”

The achievement brought Czochralski many opportunities. In 1925 he became president of the GDMB Society of Metallurgists and Miners, in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany. Henry Ford invited Czochralski to visit his factories and offered him the position of director at Ford’s new aluminum factory in Detroit. Czochralski declined the offer, longing to return to Poland, Schmidt says. Instead, Czochralski left Germany to become a professor of metallurgy and metal research at the Warsaw University of Technology, at the invitation of Polish President Ignacy Mościcki.

“During World War II, the Nazis took over his laboratories at the university,” Schmidt says. “He had to cooperate with them or die. At night, he and his team [at the university] worked with the Polish resistance and the Polish Army to fight the Nazis.”

After the war ended, Czochralski was arrested in 1945 and charged with betraying Poland. Although he was able to clear his name, damage was done. He left Warsaw and returned to Kcynia, where he ran a small pharmaceutical business until he died in 1953, according to the JanCZ project.

Launching the JanCZ project

Schmidt was born in Czochralski’s home in Kcynia in 1955, two years after his grandfather’s death. He was named Klemens Jan Borys Czochralski. He and his mother (Czochralski’s youngest daughter) emigrated in 1958 when Schmidt was 3 years old, moving to Detroit as refugees. When he was 13, he became a U.S. citizen. He changed his name to Fred Schmidt after his mother married his stepfather.

Schmidt heard stories about his grandfather from his mother his whole life, but he says that “as a teenager, I was just interested in hanging out with my friends, going to school, and working. I really didn’t want much to do with it [family history], because it seemed hard to believe.”

Portrait of Jan Czochralski Byla Sobie Fotka

In 2013 Polish scientist Pawel E. Tomaszewski contacted Schmidt to interview him for a Polish TV documentary about his grandfather.

“He had corresponded with my mother [who’d died 20 years earlier] for previously published biographies about Czochralski,” Schmidt says. “I had some boxes of her things that I started going through to prepare for the interview, and I found original manuscripts and papers he [his grandfather] published about his work.”

The TV crew traveled to the United States and interviewed him for the documentary, Schmidt says, adding, “It was the first time I’d ever had to reckon with the Jan Czochralski story, my connection, my original name, and my birthplace. It was both a very cathartic and traumatic experience for me.”

Ten years after participating in the documentary, Schmidt says, he decided to reconnect with his roots.

“It took me that long to process it [what he learned] and figure out my role in this story,” he says. “That really came to life with my decision to reapply for Polish citizenship, reacquaint myself with the country, and meet my family there.”

In 2024 he visited the Warsaw University of Technology and saw the IEEE Milestone plaque honoring his grandfather’s contribution to technology.

“Once I learned what the Milestone award represented, I thought, Whoa, that’s big,” he says.

Sharing the story with the Western world

Since 2023, Schmidt has dedicated himself to publicizing his grandfather’s story, primarily in the West because he doesn’t speak Polish. Sylwester Czochralski manages the work in Poland, with Schmidt’s input.

Most of the available writing about Czochralski is in Polish, Schmidt says, so his goal is to “spread his story to English-speaking countries.”

He aims to do that, he says, through a biography written by Tomaszewski in Polish that will be translated to English, and a film. The movie is in development by Sywester Banaszkiewicz, who produced and directed the 2014 documentary in Poland. Schmidt says he hopes the movie will be similar to the 2023 biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who helped develop the world’s first nuclear weapons during World War II.

The English and Polish versions of the website take visitors through Czochralski’s life and his work. They highlight media coverage of the chemist, including newspaper articles, films, and informational videos posted by YouTube creators.

Schmidt is working with the Czochralski Research and Development Institute in Toruń, Poland, to purchase his grandfather’s home in Kcynia and the mansion he lived in while he was a professor in Warsaw. The institute is a collection of labs and initiatives dedicated to honoring the chemist’s work.

“It’s going to be a long, fun journey, and we have a lot of momentum,” Schmidt says of his plans to turn the residences into museums.

“Launching this initiative has been fulfilling and personally rewarding work,” he says. “My grandfather died in obscurity without ever seeing the results of his work, and my mother spent her entire adult life trying to right these wrongs.

“I’m on an accelerated course to make it [her goal] happen to the best of my ability.”