Why Schools Are Using a New Chatbot to Help Support Students

[00:00:03] Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Wednesday, February 26th. I'm Charlotte Gartenberg for The Wall Street Journal. Does flying green matter in the Trump era? The president's endorsement of e-VTOLs, or electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, is giving a boost to one green aviation industry. But beyond the top air taxi players, zero-emission aircraft development is falling by the wayside. We'll hear about what green vehicles are going up and which might be coming down.

[00:00:32] Then, it can be hard for teens to open up, particularly if there aren't enough counselors in school districts. WSJ Family and Tech columnist Julie Jargon explains why some schools are turning to a human-AI chatbot for students in need of mental health support. But first, President Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have said that the U.S. must win the e-VTOL race with China.

[00:01:00] Their statements have helped a couple air taxi stocks rally, but a wider view of green aviation looks less bright. Here to tell us about it is our Heard on the Street columnist, John Cindreu. John, let's start by talking about those in green aviation that are seeing some blue skies. Who are the major players there right now, and how is it going for them? There's many types of zero-emission aircraft that companies, startups, and even bigger aerospace firms are trying to develop.

[00:01:30] The one that caught a lot of attention back in 2020-2021 with the blank-check SPAC boom that Wall Street was going through, and all that whole meme stock craziness, were the air taxis. It's this idea that you'll hop onto this kind of electric mini helicopter that will take you to your favorite restaurant or stuff like that. There is a case that some of these vehicles could replace helicopters and they would be green.

[00:01:57] The two big companies in the U.S. that actually managed to list through these vehicles and are still going strong today are Jovi Aviation and Archer Aviation. These companies, even though, as we will discuss now, there's been many failures of green aviation startups recently, they're still bringing in investor money and they're still inching closer, theoretically, to certifying their aircraft with the FAA, which is not an easy thing to do.

[00:02:25] The fact that the administration seems friendly to them has made these stocks skyrocket recently. Since the election, they've gone up a lot. One must remember that they came down a lot from their 2021 peaks, but they've recovered significantly. The fact that the Trump administration has come with a wind of change when it comes to everything related to ESG, green investing, all this kind of stuff is out of favor.

[00:02:49] Ultimately, it's probably worse for them than any sort of favorable inclination of the administration or any promise to make it an easy regulatory environment for them. So we're not making the connection that rallying stocks is going to mean we'll soon really see eVTOLs take to the air. It's possible. Joby, for example, they've been at it for many, many years, far before they SPAC'd, and they've done more than 100 test flights with a pilot.

[00:03:19] And these companies are starting to get results and get closer to maybe something that could be feasibly certified. But one has to remember that it's very complex. We're talking about aircraft that have to fly no matter what the weather is, aircraft that have to keep some battery life in reserve in case something goes wrong. Right now, what the FAA has said is that they'll have to keep 20 minutes of flight time in reserve, which is better than they thought they were getting. They thought they were getting 30. So it's possible.

[00:03:48] But elsewhere, we are seeing a lot of failure. Let's talk about that. There are some other players in the field right now. What's going on with them? And what are the roadblocks that they're facing? When we brother the lens, we see a lot more failures, including with Evitol companies, particularly in Germany. We had two big Evitol companies, Lilium and Volocopter. Especially in the case of Lilium, there is definitely a big technological component to why it's failed.

[00:04:14] The company sent an email just a few days ago saying that it's almost certain that it won't be rescued from insolvency. One has to remember that battery technology is still in its infancy and it's progressing very linearly. So it takes many years for the range to increase. And also, if you want to fly one of these vehicles, you have to remember going from vertical to horizontal is very complicated and it takes a lot of energy. There is also a sentiment element to this. Green flying used to be cool.

[00:04:44] Now it's out of fashion. And you see it with Airbus cancelling their own Evitol project, for example. Boeing absorbed a company they were backing called WISC. And it's still to be seen what will happen to it. So it really feels like the whole zeitgeist of the industry is changing. That was heard on the street columnist, John Sindriu. Coming up, the counselor is not in. But the AI-powered well-being companion is.

[00:05:12] Can a hybrid chatbot help with student mental health in schools? That's after the break. Sonar Mental Health, the developer of an AI-powered well-being companion named Sunny,

[00:05:36] is rolling out its hybrid model to school districts, which are struggling to meet student demand for mental health services. Our family and tech columnist, Julie Jargon, is here to tell us more. Julie, how does this chatbot work? So unlike most chatbots, which are AI only, this one is a little bit different. It's part AI, part human.

[00:05:58] As much as the AI learns from human interactions, the humans that are in the mix are also learning from the AI how best to communicate with teens. There are people with backgrounds in psychology, social work, and crisis line support who monitor all of the chats with students. And they can insert themselves and edit the chats or write their own responses if they want to.

[00:06:20] And the AI learning from prior interactions with teens has discovered ways that seem to resonate most with teens about communication. For example, they've learned that teens don't really like smiley face emojis. They prefer things like the melting face emoji. And they've learned from talking to teens across the country what types of local vernacular resonate most with teens in certain geographic areas.

[00:06:45] So the humans have learned from that how to tailor their responses to the teenagers that they're communicating with. And who developed it? So it was developed by Drew Barveer, an alumni of Stanford Graduate School of Business. While he was at Stanford, he and another fellow classmate at Stanford developed this. They wanted to provide something that would fill in the gaps in mental health care, which are considerable when it comes to young people especially. How was the chatbot built?

[00:07:12] They built it on several different large language models. And then it was trained in certain psychological techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy by a team of clinicians who have background in mental health services so that it can ask the right types of questions to teens and understand when a teen might be in crisis. So kids are already interacting with Sunny now. How widespread is the use of this hybrid chatbot? So it's currently in use in nine school districts across the country.

[00:07:42] And there are 4,500 students that have this available to them in those nine school districts. And a lot of these districts are in low income and rural areas where there's a shortage of mental health services in general. And then, of course, at the school level as well with a shortage of school counselors. This is supposed to be something that doesn't replace humans. But when there aren't enough people for students to talk to, that this is something that could catch issues early on.

[00:08:07] And then, you know, if students are in need of mental health support as identified by the AI and the humans that are a part of this, or they're talking about self-harm, that they can flag that to the correct people and intervene and get help before there's a crisis. So in our CEO, Drew Barveer told you that he makes it clear to schools and students that Sunny isn't a therapist. And the bot frequently encourages kids to talk to the humans in their lives. So, Julie, what are some of the potential risks?

[00:08:37] There's always privacy risks with things like this, especially when you've got young people who are providing what could be very sensitive personal information. information. Sonar says that, you know, in its privacy policy that once a student closes out their account, they retain the data for 60 days and then delete it. And that parents and students can request to have any chats deleted at any time. But data privacy is always something that's a concern in a situation where there could be hacking or something like that.

[00:09:06] Having personal information out there is always a risk. So how is Sunny going? What are users saying about it? From the people I talked to, they said that they've gotten positive feedback from students, that students feel like this is a sort of a judgment-free zone where they can share their obsessive thoughts that might annoy their friends, that they can talk about the same problems that they're ruminating on over and over again. And Sunny is not going to tell them to stop, that it's always there to listen and steer them kind of in the right direction.

[00:09:35] Some of the schools I talked to said they've seen a drop in student disciplinary problems since they began using this. Others have said they've seen an increase in grades. It's still early days to get the results and whether it's related to this chatbot or something else. But there's been generally positive feedback from the students who've used it. What kind of concerns do people have about the bot? When you talk to therapists, there's a concern that even though this isn't meant to be a replacement for therapy,

[00:10:02] that some students who might benefit from therapy just won't go that route because they feel like this is it, I've got someone to talk to, and they won't take that extra step to have a face-to-face interaction. Therapists say that can an AI really understand if a student is experiencing depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues?

[00:10:24] Unlike in a face-to-face interaction where a therapist can gauge body language and kind of take some of those nonverbal cues to understand how a student might be struggling, and that could be missed by AI. That was our family and tech columnist, Julie Jargon. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Jess Jupiter with supervising producer Catherine Millsop. I'm Charlotte Gartenberg for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.