Me, Myself, and AI

Although I didn’t grow up with modern technology, I have always been fascinated by it. Growing up in Iraq, I remember feeling excited whenever our neighborhood’s 2-hour daily window of electricity came around. That meant I could plug in the Yamaha computer and start writing lines of code in BASIC. The thrill of writing some words and seeing a machine turn them into a basic shape was unparalleled.

After I moved to the U.S. as a war refugee, I experienced high-speed, uncensored internet for the first time. I started learning about everything—from cooking skills to coding skills—and quickly realized two things:

• Technology can make anything achievable

• Access to technology should not be limited

That realization shaped my entire career. I wanted to make sure everyone has equal access to the tools that change lives.

For the past 15 years, I’ve worked in Machine Learning and AI. I’m not an AI hipster by any means, but I’ve published about 10 peer-reviewed papers on AI-powered applications and have worked in the field closely enough to know that in 2025, everything has changed.

Adaptive UIs for Older Adults

During my first Master’s degree in Human-Centered Computing, I helped develop a browser extension that analyzed a user’s cursor behavior in real-time.

🧠 The AI model was trained on data from people with Parkinson’s or tremors—if it detected difficulty interacting, it would either:

• Alert the user that they were struggling

• Automatically adapt the UI (e.g., increase button size)

This meant that technology wasn’t just accessible—it was adaptive.

🔗 You can see the results of this work [here]

Dytective: A Video Game to Detect Dyslexia

While I was a visiting scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, I co-invented Dytective with three brilliant researchers (Luz Rello, Jeffrey Bigham, and Miguel Ballesteros).

We trained an AI model on spelling mistakes common in dyslexic children, then reverse-engineered it into a web-based game where kids performed visual pattern-matching tasks.

🎯 Result? The AI could classify with ~90% accuracy whether a child was at risk for dyslexia.

Why does this matter?

• Dyslexia is the #1 cause of kids dropping out of school

• ~10% of the world’s population has dyslexia

• Early detection = better interventions

• 💡 Dytective is still live today under the nonprofit ChangeDyslexia.org. and has helped over half a million kids for free.

🔗 You can see my work on it [here], [here], and [here].

Democratizing Interaction Design with AI

Between 2016 and 2020, I finished my Ph.D. in four years instead of six—thanks to AI.

My thesis focused on Distributed Interaction Design—enabling technology creators to run co-design sessions at scale.

💡 Why does this matter?

• People with disabilities or in remote areas are often excluded from shaping technology, so I created Crowdlicit to help researchers run co-design studies online.

• I created Crowdsensus, an AI-powered tool to analyze thousands of user-submitted designs

The biggest challenge in democratizing design research was analyzing massive amounts of qualitative data. AI helped solve that.

🔗 You can see the results of this work [here], [here], and [here].

What Now?

Now, I’m building 3rd Brain, Inc., a company with a simple but powerful mission:

To use technology to enhance human connection and understanding—not to replace people.

At 3rd Brain, we believe that AI should augment our relationships, not diminish them. Our first product, the 3rd Brain app, is designed to help couples share the mental load of life—giving them a shared space for tasks, events, and thoughts so they can focus less on logistics and more on each other.

But this is just the beginning. The future of AI isn’t about automating human connection—it’s about making it stronger, easier, and more intuitive. That’s what we’re building toward.

Would love to hear your thoughts—how do you think AI can enhance (rather than replace) the way we collaborate and connect?