Meet Henry Xie: The 17-year-old Portland student whose method made smaller AI models more empathetic in at least 90% of tests

Large language models (LLMs) with billions of parameters, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, can produce detailed and emotionally supportive responses. During the first training stage, Xie collected published examples of empathetic conversations produced by LLMs such as ChatGPT and Gemini. He then used these examples to train small language models and teach them basic patterns for using empathetic language. Xie also co-founded Youth for Empathetic AI, a student-led non-profit group that connects high school researchers with academic mentors. By helping small language models produce empathetic responses directly on personal devices, Xie's research shows that advanced conversational features could work locally without sending sensitive user information to cloud servers.

Source: Times of India September 13, 2026 18:37 UTC