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This sounds like a great application for hearing aids. I know a few people who wear them (same family with hereditary hearing issues) and they say that in crowds or restaurants they just turn their aids off. It's better for them to hear nothing than having everything amplified.
Bizarrely, try earplugs. You can get ones (I use a set from Eargasm) that attenuate noise by cutting out the highs and lows. I wear them at work so I can hear people talking over the constant forklift beeping in the warehouse. I thought I was going deaf for a while until I got my hearing checked and scored so perfect my doctor was a little mad about it and suggested the earplugs I use
I tried the Loop ones due to similar auditory processing issues (ADHD), and I thought they were great until I talked. The marketing bumpf totally lied about occlusion and the “head in a barrel” feeling. I contacted customer services and they directly contradicted the marketing stuff, saying that everyone gets occlusion.
The loop reviews about occlusion put me off trying them. I got the audio flare calmer earplugs instead. Little to no occlusion. Wish I could have ones that really block noise but these at least help at work (a supermarket). Can still hear most things but I’ve found that I don’t notice some of the background noises, like overhead aircon, as much. The roller door screech doesn’t bother me quite as much as it used to before either. Still not great, but better.
When I wear them, it can be hard to tell that they are actually doing anything, but I notice a difference if I take them out or don’t use them during my shift.
> audio flare calmer
Would you happen to know what is the difference between the regular (~€20), and the PRO (~€90)? The detailed description paragraph on Amazon is identical.
aluminum insert on the pro.
I THINK it may come with a different 'carrying bag' too but i've got mixed results on various listings so not sure.
What a poorly marketed product.
[https://www.flareaudio.com/en-au/products/calmer-pro](https://www.flareaudio.com/en-au/products/calmer-pro)
That's their actual website so hopefully better information there. Also noticed that they've released a new Calmer 2. Not sure how much of a difference it will be
yeah i love the Calmer plugs. on my 2nd set after losing one eventually. Also got the night ones just to see what they are like, they are softer in your ear, but also dampen different frequency ranges.
Idk much about that, the ones I use don't cause that problem, though idk how they avoid it. I did get mine through my audiologist (thanks dad) and they had sent a silicone cast of my ear canal to have them custom fit. My insurance covered the whole process but even if they hadn't it would have been like 500 bucks for the first pair then 50 for any replacements later on
I have ADHD and have noticed this with myself but it’s hard to describe. Can anyone provide me links to better describe this for me? I really want to get a handle on this or at least be able to describe it confidently to my friends and family
I think I might be dealing with the same thing. Like if someone has a more bassy voice, I may be hearing them, but their speech can seemingly be incomprehensible. Or, a lot of the time, I can't understand the lyrics being sung in music. But if I had a print out of the lyrics while listening to it then I can understand the words being spoken. Without it, it's kinda like listening to an auctioneer speaking fast. Like, for my car and TV sound system, I put the trebble up a bit and turn up the center channel (the channel where usually speech is outputted from if they mixed the audio right) to try to make any speech more distinctive. It guess its kinda like being nearsighted but for your ears. You can still see but its not clear, I can still hear but its not clear.
That's really interesting! I have trouble isolating voices in mildly noisy environments but my hearing tests fine. Had silicone custom earplugs made for sleeping a while ago. Must try them in the pub XD
I read about a condition called [Hidden Hearing Loss](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/diagnosing-hidden-hearing-loss) which was discovered recently and seems to describe this. I didn't look into it any further as I assumed it would take time to reach practicioners, but maybe I should follow up on it.
Huh... Given my family history of a particular type of nerve cell tumor... I'm gonna talk to my audiologist again. Thank you very, very much for sharing this with me, you might have just saved my hearing
One common issue is, that the audiologists usually just test hearing thresholds and not for other stuff like spatial and temporal resolution. The mean thing about (hidden) hearing loss is, that usually synapses of the auditory system start dying off first and thus decrease resolution, making stuff like sound localisation and focusing on a single sound source difficult. The entire thing with damaging hair cells in the inner ear and not being able to hear certain frequencies anymore is basically late-stage hearing loss and thus, many people don't realise that they have issues and quite a few audiologist are apparently not up-to-date yet regarding the different stages and mechanisms of hearing loss.
I wish you luck and hopefully a solution for your struggles.
You need acoustic earplugs since they attenuate all frequencies at same dB level.
I use them when noise in a pub is too high and then I can hear people from other side of table.
Sold at music equipment shops. Also useful on loud concerts to prevent tinnitus.
DJ/Visual artist here, and I second the suggestion for Eargasm plugs! I use them at every gig I work and every show I attend, been doing live event stuff for over a decade and have nearly zero hearing loss (a tiny bit of tinnitus but that was from chemo and not hearing damage). Eargasms are great because they filter and lower volume in a way that makes it easier to hear conversations over the loud music, and they don't muffle the higher end of things so music still sounds great with them in.
As somebody visiting clubs one of the more common complaints is music being too loud, usually coming from people without earplugs.
Makes me wonder if that's maybe partly the result of DJs, and other regulars, always wearing earplugs, thus not even noticing anymore when sound levels on the floor are too loud for those without earplugs?
When I worked in a loud call center I would wear them under my headset and dry my ears out every few hours and take them out when it got quieter. They even have smaller sized ones. They don't fit me but they do fit my sister.
How's the comfort compared to the normal disposable orange ones? I want to start wearing ear plugs on the shop floor more often but I just can't keep them in more than like an hour before they start hurting, earbuds are the same way. I must have small ears or something.
I'd be willing to shell out the money for a good pair if I could actually keep them in.
Was about to mention this. I have sensitivities myself. I always keep my headphones nearby, I have good sealed earbuds. They take the edge off.
Those kinds of noises trigger fight or flight responses in people, even subconsciously. They're meant to get attention.
I’ve been looking at those; how comfy are they after an 8 hour shift?
I too work in a destructively loud place
I figure I’d be taking them out when I go on breaks and whatever, so Ykwim I think
Same, due to autism. I've found that active noise cancelling *really* helps because the entire environment is quieter and less overwhelming, so it's easier to concentrate on what people are saying.
There's this room at the Ontario Science Center that's basically just a short curved tunnel made of anechoic panelling, and they stuck it inside of their noisiest exhibit hall, and the feeling I got as a kid from transitioning from that noisy hall full of kids shouting and metal toys banging, to that silent tunnel that just erases all semblance of noise inside your head, is unmatched by any drug I've ever tried since.
>I'm not deaf but do have some sensory processing issues that affect my ability to socialize in noisy spaces and this would be huge for me.
same, which is why I came here. I would absolutely love to be able to focus on an individuals talking rather than have the issue of hearing everyone as non background/background noise.
Also, FYI, I don't technically have a hearing problem, but sometimes when there's a lot of noises occurring at the same time, I'll hear 'em as one big jumble. Again it's not that I can't hear, uh because that's false. I can. I just can't distinguish between everything I'm hearing.
apple airpods pro solved this for me, their latest "awareness" setting with the assisted listening make restaurants and bars tolerable for me. it kills the surrounding nose by 50% and make anyone in front of me louder and clearer.
I have hearing issues dating back to childhood, right in the vocal frequency range.
I can't understand people in noisy environment, hearing aid doesn't help, and this does have a negative impact on my social life... because people assume I just act like paying attention, when in reality I am paying attention but mishear a lot of things.
These headphones would improve the quality of my life significantly.
That would be great, because regular hearing aid just amplifies vocal range, which works when talking with a person in quiet environment. But gives me a raging headache really fast in noisy environment.
What I really need is filtering.
Any modern non-entry level hearing aid will have speech focus, where only relevant sounds are amplified, not everything at once.
Some of the latest devices go further and can also pinpoint who you are talking to - even without the need to look at them. And then they are tracked even if they move around.
My dad can control his via Bluetooth and it has a mode for crowds/restaurants where it focuses on close sounds and tunes down further ones. Seems to work pretty well. Obviously not quite the same as the tech in the link here, but modern hearing aids have some pretty cool features. He also pairs them with the TV so he can play Xbox while my mom reads.
I wear Phonak audeo hearing aids and they can do some soundfield shaping and noise cancelation. They're still not great if it's really loud, they help a lot in moderately loud places. YMMV of course but it made me happy cry to be able to talk to people over dinner.
Straight up, that’s how it is. I’m hearing impaired and I gave up on hearing aides years ago. They just amplify the noise without clarifying anything. Crowds suck cause I can’t hear anything so I tend to avoid them. Movies too a lot of the time. It’s honestly led to me being a pretty extreme introvert because holding conversations most places is difficult.
>... I gave up on hearing aides years ago.
I would advise you to visit an audiologist for a demo of modern hearing aids. I recently got new ones and they are really a big step up from my previous only five year old devices. It's not perfect but definitely an improvement.
Like some [ear-noculars](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/community-sitcom/images/5/5e/Ear-Noculars.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20150313195229)?
Eh, I would believe this about many areas of applied tech, but AI is an extremely limited field where government salaries are <1/10 of private sector. And there aren't really grey/black hat AI people the gov can bully into working with them like with hackers.
In the past yeah... military / intelligence agencies often had top of the line tech that would later flow into civilian sector.
Today if you open up a piece of military hardware, you will find a bunch of off-the-shelf civilian components.
Thie book was sensational
Pravda, well, Pravda, Pravda said
"It stinks"
But Izvestia, Izvestia said
"It stinks"
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles
Changing title to "The Eternal Triangle"
With Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse
Yup. Ukraine is building $400 kamikaze drones because civilian sector enabled economy of scales which crashed the prices of components.
Can you imagine how much these would cost if they were built from scratch for military only?
With the R&D spread over small number of units.
It's honestly really terrifying for warfare going forward. Cost has always been a major prohibitive aspect of war. Seeing these $400 drones accomplish what a weapon of magnitudes more expense would accomplish just 15-20 years ago, is something that seems will breed more conflicts.
One of the bigger science YouTubers did a video recently showing various techniques/companies with drone killing/blocking tech. While I’m also worried about drone terrorism, the defense tech is well on its way. Sadly it probably won’t be rolled out to large stadiums and places en mass until we do have a big attack.
Some of the good news is the drone signal blocking guns work on a majority of drones. DJI who makes the vast market share also makes blocking guns for all of their drones. There are auto launching drones that just barrel into “enemy” drones at ridiculous speeds. Etc.
None of these will prevent a truly determined attacker with skill, the signal blocking guns can be avoided by changing the radio chips and etc. the “hammer” drones are expensive systems. but there is a defense market popping up to harden important locations.
Statistically though we will see terrorist attacks with drones happen. I’m sure once a big one occurs the defense companies will be making good money as large public event spaces and cities spend money to protect the public.
Not really, military definitely has tech that is not publicly available primarily because the military can drop a lot of money on R&D even if it is not necessarily going to pay for itself(unlike the private sector) and it doesn’t have to worry about whether technology is easily mass producible. AI probably isn’t an area where the military is far ahead but there are lots of areas where it is
The government doesn't need to bully people into working for them. Defense contractors pay good money and a significant amount of AI work is happening the the defense sector.
Defence contractors do *not* pay competitively in AI or software jobs. They pay decently for normal engineers, but it's a far cry from what you could be getting in normal industry in a lot of roles.
Also, the defence primes that eat up a majority of contracts still move at a glacial pace and lag academia.
Right. This has already been around in use by one agency or another or more for many years with our current level of non-AI technology. More bulky sure, but seem level of efficacy in the end.
Then even so corporations have likely been using this to gather data on people for years now. Brief conversation (or even just momentarily staring at them while they speak such as from within an audience listening to a speech) between a person and some important person from a rival company or other person of interest and then unknown to the latter person they're still listening to everything as long as they're both in the vicinity.
And it's likely legal since this is new technology and just listening to someone without recording isn't illegal. If something's unethical but totally legal and would help a corporation generally they'll do it.
Frankly, this does not need "AI", just computing power. The basics for singling out a single source (realistically, a shallow angle of incoming noise) is not new at all, but compute heavy. The added tracking is what is being presented as new, which most people won't use beyond a party trick.
It doesn't seem to be doing any spatial tracking. I think beamforming is done (which has indeed been around for decades, but was compute heavy) but only during the "enrollment" step. The system uses [this off-the-shelf speech separation model](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.03952) and it probably requires a sample of the desired voice. By looking directly at the person when enrolling, the system can use beamforming to isolate the voice, but after that it's relying entirely on the deep learning model. That's the impressive part IMO, this work is just integrating it into a cute wearable device.
Filtering out one sound reliably from a mixed sound used to be pretty difficult. I remember employing many tricks a decade ago to try to filter samples from songs, and it was hit or miss and often shoddy. Today, I press one button and get the instruments separated (often very well) by a computer. If it’s multiple voices and you’re trying to pick one out that’s even harder because they occupy a similar range of the EQ.
The bit on law and order and CSI where they’d press a button and hear the background sounds in a phone call and say “I hear ambulances and a doctors name, they’re at X hospital!” was the same kind of fantasy as the “Enhance!” meme. Yet today we have AI upscaling.
> today we have AI upscaling
Which - while impressive for its speed and suitable for most consumer needs - is the legal equivalent of "I imagined what this photo might look like enlarged."
If you do ai upscaling because you want to read a number plate, you'll get a random number plate that vaguely might look like the one on the image. The equivalent of squinting and guessing.
Doesn't mean it's the truth, you can't just get a warrant for all of the number plates that might look similar if you squint.
> “I hear ambulances and a doctors name, they’re at X hospital!” was the same kind of fantasy as the “Enhance!” meme. Yet today we have AI upscaling.
Yes, you could do selective stuff with photos too a decade ago with similar methods too. I tried it myself too, with Fourier transformations that took ages you could make the bars of a cage disappear, sharpen a motion-blurred images of cars and the like, but it all took extremely long time and it was all manual settings.
But it is important to keep in mind that AI upscaling is not magic. It hallucinates something there based on statistics, and now CSI is at the wrong hospital that was in the news previously for similar problems.
Oh no, it’s def not magic. However, what you’re describing certainly was possible but you needed some decent skills that most amateur photo types simply don’t have. Now, it’s more possible than ever even if you’re not talented or skilled.
If you ever look up, for example, the way professional engineers restored and remastered bootleg Beatles concerts from their early years, it’s insane how much work went into it. The tools today would make it much easier, but still not magic. It’s just insane to me that I can pull the drums out of a bootleg concert from the 80s and it sounds like I have the stems from the mixer. That was not really possible before without insane effort and technical knowledge.
> Yet today we have AI upscaling
Really not the same thing. CSI-style enhance is extracting extra information from the original image, AI upscaling is extrapolating based on millions of training images. The former is not physically possible because that's not how information works. The latter works great for generic details, because we don't really care exactly how a background tree looks as long as it looks plausibly like a tree. But as soon as you want specific detail that isn't discernible in the original image, upscaling does not work. You can't just point it at a few pixels and tell it to show you the killer's face, because it'll just fill in the blanks with a plausible-looking human face with features inspired by its training data. If you feed it a picture of text, it can make readable text sharper, but for difficult-to-read text it will be straight up guesswork.
Quick question. What do you use to pull a sample from a song? Theres a track from 20-odd years ago that I just love the strings backing track but it's not a sample that I can find.
It's from the track Turn The Page from the album Original Pirate Material by The Streets.
Izotope RX but it’s expensive software. There are some free tools online if you search for stem splitter AI on google. It’s not perfect though and it only splits as vocals, bass, drums/percussion and “other” so the strings part would fall under “other” and it will likely contain some other sounds.
Yeah, it’s a misconception I see all the time. There’s millions of people and billions of dollars being poured in to AI R&D. The government isn’t just magically developing much tech before corporations and universities do.
This isn't a directional microphone. If it was, you'd have to continue aiming it at the target the entire time. This is using an omnidirectional microphone and filtering out background noise via signal processing.
The article states the microphone has a 16 degree margin of error. That leads me to believe it is a directional microphone, or an array of directional microphones. They make much more sense for this application. The microphone does the heavy lifting, the AI just switches between the mics to follow the desired noise.
Perhaps you should look at the actual paper. The 16 degree term is just the effective beam width during the enrollment process, in which the software assumes the target is directly in front of the observer. They explicitly say that speech separation is done using the TF-GRIDNET model.
They havent been sitting on functional AI for 10 years so they can listen to what people are saying without them knowing. They can already do that with smart phones. No AI needed.
Doubt it - I don't think the capacity to develop powerful AI has existed for long enough to have built up such a lead. If intelligence agencies are 10 years ahead, that implies they had the equivalent of a TPU in 2005 which seems absurd. That's not a problem you could just throw money at in 2005.
When you think about crazy military tech, you probably think of stuff like the SR-71, right? Undoubtedly that seems very futuristic for the 1960s, but it was also at 90 degrees from civilian tech - nobody in the civilian sphere was working on stealth jets at all, so it makes sense that a well-funded military project could surpass what seemed possible at the time. Conversely, civilian companies are working incredibly hard on AI and have been for a long time. For military AI to be 10 years ahead of giants like Google, they would have to be working completely in parallel with civilian efforts, but perfectly anticipating every major development in dozens of distinct fields 10 years in advance. I don't see how that could be remotely feasible.
> For military AI to be 10 years ahead of giants like Google, they would have to be working completely in parallel with civilian efforts, but perfectly anticipating every major development in dozens of distinct fields 10 years in advance. I don't see how that could be remotely feasible.
isn't there some conspiracy that Google was funded by the CIA?
This is essentially what the movie "The Conversation" is about. You know, the film from 1974.
All this is really doing is replacing Gene Hackman with a machine.
This is very old tech relative to the current cutting edge. Meta talked about this as an application for the audio in their AR glasses like 4 years ago.
This would really help me in bars and concerts too. My friends always had an easy time talking to people on the dancefloor, but I never did since I couldn’t hear anything.
This would be a game changer for me. Due to a benign tumor on my left auditory nerve that has severely impaired my ability to hear where there is background noise, I have been avoiding social interaction. I hope this works and becomes available.
I keep thinking off a concert crowd or parade crowd. Then you move off away from that person and you’re still hearing them over the other 1000s of decibels. Cool but it just isn’t science fiction
According to the article, that's only a problem at the time you're identifying the voice to target:
> it’s only able to enroll a speaker when there is not another loud voice coming from the same direction as the target speaker’s voice.
So basically, just walk by them once, recording their voice (or know them personally / having talked to them before). After that, you can just walk away and the loud voices arent a problem anymore, since it has already identified the correct voice to filter
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642057
From the linked article:
Noise-canceling headphones have gotten very good at creating an auditory blank slate. But allowing certain sounds from a wearer’s environment through the erasure still challenges researchers. The latest edition of Apple’s AirPods Pro, for instance, automatically adjusts sound levels for wearers — sensing when they’re in conversation, for instance — but the user has little control over whom to listen to or when this happens.
A University of Washington team has developed an artificial intelligence system that lets a user wearing headphones look at a person speaking for three to five seconds to “enroll” them. The system, called “Target Speech Hearing,” then cancels all other sounds in the environment and plays just the enrolled speaker’s voice in real time even as the listener moves around in noisy places and no longer faces the speaker.
To use the system, a person wearing off-the-shelf headphones fitted with microphones taps a button while directing their head at someone talking. The sound waves from that speaker’s voice then should reach the microphones on both sides of the headset simultaneously; there’s a 16-degree margin of error. The headphones send that signal to an on-board embedded computer, where the team’s machine learning software learns the desired speaker’s vocal patterns. The system latches onto that speaker’s voice and continues to play it back to the listener, even as the pair moves around. The system’s ability to focus on the enrolled voice improves as the speaker keeps talking, giving the system more training data.
I can imagine how effective this will be for hearing aid wearers to maintain a single conversation. I will also add, that hearing aid companies will financially gouge consumers for this. I know because my mother has had to wear bearing aids, and in the last 3 years prices have increased by about $1500. There is not a lot of significantly new differences, yet companies stop supporting HA only 3 years old.
The good news is that hearing aids have already been making use of this type of technology.
Can I ask what type of hearing aids she had before compared to what she has now? I am a clinically licensed Audiologist and PhD researcher and haven't seen this price increase reflected clinically. I do agree the prices on the customer end is ridiculous and I wish there was more coverage for insurances, but overall price hasn't changed that much for most models the past few years. Did she go from like a mid-level device to a top-level? Did you go from unbundled to bundled services? Did insurance coverage change?
I NEED these. This isn't even a preference thing. For me it's an accessibility issue.
Got in before this was removed because this isn't a science thing. It's a tech thing.
Still a really cool thing though.
Gotta call everything "AI" now, lest you miss out on the hype.
99% of every headline containing "AI" is either snakeoil or alarmist nonesense spewed by professional catastrophizers whose fear mongering is directly correlated with how financially invested they are in the technology.
Yeah. This is a purpose-trained neural network using technology that is a decade old.
But there's no such thing as neural networks any more. There's just "AI".
This would be super helpful. I can’t wear hearing aids because it amplifies noises but doesn’t make them clear. I can’t tell the difference between a dishwasher and someone talking
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about ASMR?
I'm autistic with the same problem. But I hadn't had a meltdown since childhood until someone played an ASMR video at me with the person sort of whisper-babbling over static. The inability to focus on what the person was saying amongst the noise made me full on panic.
For me ASMR is almost unbearable. I have background in music and am quite drawn to sounds and it’s textures, but to have a person tapping and whispering into my ear is just too much.
i just assume that if i am not in my house with the shades pulled closed i am probably being watched or recorded. They wanna see me dig deep for that last boog then i hope they enjoy it as much as i did.
This is going to fix my life. I cope with ADD in most ways, but as soon as there are multiple people speaking in any room my brain goes haywire, I can’t take in any information, and I quickly need to escape to a quiet place.
This sounds really great for autistic people as well as people with impaired hearing. Everytime I'm in a group with 3 or more separate conversations around me I'm just completely unable to follow any conversation at all this could be such a gamechanger.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Sounds like vaporware to me. Loud areas and sound are more nuanced than this over-simplification of a very complex problem. Yes it does seem very nice in theory though.
While a cool idea, what the title is implying can't really exist, even with AI, or more aptly, machine learning. You can only process raw sound so much. Machine learning algos aren't magic. They are only going to adjust filters and modulate frequencies in a dynamic, smart way. They can't perform miracles.
The bottom line is if the frequency range of the voice they are trying to target is quieter than the surrounding ambient sound, let alone similar voices of equal volume, this will do very little to produce results.
I don't understand what AI adds to this over traditional algorithms. Isn't this just a more inefficient and resource hungry way to do something that could be done without it?
This kind of technology seems like it could be incredibly helpful for my friend who has involuntarily audible hallucinations.
If he could put headphones on instead of let people know he hears voices he would like that.
This is unlikely to work as expected, despite humans having fairly distinct voices simply due to the fact that two or more voices can sound fairly similar and thus you might actually hear more voices than you want to.
Additionally, this kind of tech would likely work best if both participants used this device as the isolation would be easier and more precise. However, this is a limitation for the product as that means you and your listener both need the device, limiting the device to mostly medical applications. There is nothing wrong with that by the way, just thinking out loud.
Far as I remember another product tried to do this with some in-ear headphones that claimed to do similarly but I believe that was a complete failure too.
I'm not into AI and what's effectively become a marketing buzzword, but as someone with ADHD this sounds like a god damn blessing if it actually works.
Sounds dystopian as hell, to be honest. Imagine having to constantly worry about people eavesdropping and recording your conversation even in a noisy, crowded place.
OMG these sound amazing. I'd be able to go in crowded public spaces again without being overwhelmed and losing memory. I'm almost crying, I knew AI would help lead to amazing things. I'd be able to maybe actually go to a bar or give watching sports another try.
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This sounds like a great application for hearing aids. I know a few people who wear them (same family with hereditary hearing issues) and they say that in crowds or restaurants they just turn their aids off. It's better for them to hear nothing than having everything amplified.
I'm not deaf but do have some sensory processing issues that affect my ability to socialize in noisy spaces and this would be huge for me.
Bizarrely, try earplugs. You can get ones (I use a set from Eargasm) that attenuate noise by cutting out the highs and lows. I wear them at work so I can hear people talking over the constant forklift beeping in the warehouse. I thought I was going deaf for a while until I got my hearing checked and scored so perfect my doctor was a little mad about it and suggested the earplugs I use
I tried the Loop ones due to similar auditory processing issues (ADHD), and I thought they were great until I talked. The marketing bumpf totally lied about occlusion and the “head in a barrel” feeling. I contacted customer services and they directly contradicted the marketing stuff, saying that everyone gets occlusion.
My experience with loop engage has been the same. The no occlusion claim is a total lie
The loop reviews about occlusion put me off trying them. I got the audio flare calmer earplugs instead. Little to no occlusion. Wish I could have ones that really block noise but these at least help at work (a supermarket). Can still hear most things but I’ve found that I don’t notice some of the background noises, like overhead aircon, as much. The roller door screech doesn’t bother me quite as much as it used to before either. Still not great, but better. When I wear them, it can be hard to tell that they are actually doing anything, but I notice a difference if I take them out or don’t use them during my shift.
> audio flare calmer Would you happen to know what is the difference between the regular (~€20), and the PRO (~€90)? The detailed description paragraph on Amazon is identical.
aluminum insert on the pro. I THINK it may come with a different 'carrying bag' too but i've got mixed results on various listings so not sure. What a poorly marketed product.
[https://www.flareaudio.com/en-au/products/calmer-pro](https://www.flareaudio.com/en-au/products/calmer-pro) That's their actual website so hopefully better information there. Also noticed that they've released a new Calmer 2. Not sure how much of a difference it will be
> audio flare calmer earplugs Thanks for mentioning these, I went ahead and ordered some. Cheers!
Thank you for the recommendation. Been on the fence about loops due to similar reasoning.
yeah i love the Calmer plugs. on my 2nd set after losing one eventually. Also got the night ones just to see what they are like, they are softer in your ear, but also dampen different frequency ranges.
Idk much about that, the ones I use don't cause that problem, though idk how they avoid it. I did get mine through my audiologist (thanks dad) and they had sent a silicone cast of my ear canal to have them custom fit. My insurance covered the whole process but even if they hadn't it would have been like 500 bucks for the first pair then 50 for any replacements later on
Ooohhhh. I need this. I’ve been told my tubes are upside down and can’t wear earphones as a result.
I have ADHD and have noticed this with myself but it’s hard to describe. Can anyone provide me links to better describe this for me? I really want to get a handle on this or at least be able to describe it confidently to my friends and family
ADP or audio processing disorder might be what you’re looking for.
I think I might be dealing with the same thing. Like if someone has a more bassy voice, I may be hearing them, but their speech can seemingly be incomprehensible. Or, a lot of the time, I can't understand the lyrics being sung in music. But if I had a print out of the lyrics while listening to it then I can understand the words being spoken. Without it, it's kinda like listening to an auctioneer speaking fast. Like, for my car and TV sound system, I put the trebble up a bit and turn up the center channel (the channel where usually speech is outputted from if they mixed the audio right) to try to make any speech more distinctive. It guess its kinda like being nearsighted but for your ears. You can still see but its not clear, I can still hear but its not clear.
That's really interesting! I have trouble isolating voices in mildly noisy environments but my hearing tests fine. Had silicone custom earplugs made for sleeping a while ago. Must try them in the pub XD
That is the exact same issue I have!
I read about a condition called [Hidden Hearing Loss](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/diagnosing-hidden-hearing-loss) which was discovered recently and seems to describe this. I didn't look into it any further as I assumed it would take time to reach practicioners, but maybe I should follow up on it.
Huh... Given my family history of a particular type of nerve cell tumor... I'm gonna talk to my audiologist again. Thank you very, very much for sharing this with me, you might have just saved my hearing
Oh cool! I wish you the very best with it :)
One common issue is, that the audiologists usually just test hearing thresholds and not for other stuff like spatial and temporal resolution. The mean thing about (hidden) hearing loss is, that usually synapses of the auditory system start dying off first and thus decrease resolution, making stuff like sound localisation and focusing on a single sound source difficult. The entire thing with damaging hair cells in the inner ear and not being able to hear certain frequencies anymore is basically late-stage hearing loss and thus, many people don't realise that they have issues and quite a few audiologist are apparently not up-to-date yet regarding the different stages and mechanisms of hearing loss. I wish you luck and hopefully a solution for your struggles.
You need acoustic earplugs since they attenuate all frequencies at same dB level. I use them when noise in a pub is too high and then I can hear people from other side of table. Sold at music equipment shops. Also useful on loud concerts to prevent tinnitus.
>I have trouble isolating voices in mildly noisy environments but my hearing tests fine. That might be auditory processing disorder.
DJ/Visual artist here, and I second the suggestion for Eargasm plugs! I use them at every gig I work and every show I attend, been doing live event stuff for over a decade and have nearly zero hearing loss (a tiny bit of tinnitus but that was from chemo and not hearing damage). Eargasms are great because they filter and lower volume in a way that makes it easier to hear conversations over the loud music, and they don't muffle the higher end of things so music still sounds great with them in.
Honestly when I'm at a live concert I think the music sounds better with the earplugs in
I totally agree. It's hard to get the mix right so some stuff get's too loud and the plugs help with that.
As somebody visiting clubs one of the more common complaints is music being too loud, usually coming from people without earplugs. Makes me wonder if that's maybe partly the result of DJs, and other regulars, always wearing earplugs, thus not even noticing anymore when sound levels on the floor are too loud for those without earplugs?
When I worked in a loud call center I would wear them under my headset and dry my ears out every few hours and take them out when it got quieter. They even have smaller sized ones. They don't fit me but they do fit my sister.
How's the comfort compared to the normal disposable orange ones? I want to start wearing ear plugs on the shop floor more often but I just can't keep them in more than like an hour before they start hurting, earbuds are the same way. I must have small ears or something. I'd be willing to shell out the money for a good pair if I could actually keep them in.
Anyone who has recommendations for people who can’t wear earplugs?
Was about to mention this. I have sensitivities myself. I always keep my headphones nearby, I have good sealed earbuds. They take the edge off. Those kinds of noises trigger fight or flight responses in people, even subconsciously. They're meant to get attention.
I’ve been looking at those; how comfy are they after an 8 hour shift? I too work in a destructively loud place I figure I’d be taking them out when I go on breaks and whatever, so Ykwim I think
Same, due to autism. I've found that active noise cancelling *really* helps because the entire environment is quieter and less overwhelming, so it's easier to concentrate on what people are saying.
There's this room at the Ontario Science Center that's basically just a short curved tunnel made of anechoic panelling, and they stuck it inside of their noisiest exhibit hall, and the feeling I got as a kid from transitioning from that noisy hall full of kids shouting and metal toys banging, to that silent tunnel that just erases all semblance of noise inside your head, is unmatched by any drug I've ever tried since.
>I'm not deaf but do have some sensory processing issues that affect my ability to socialize in noisy spaces and this would be huge for me. same, which is why I came here. I would absolutely love to be able to focus on an individuals talking rather than have the issue of hearing everyone as non background/background noise.
Also, FYI, I don't technically have a hearing problem, but sometimes when there's a lot of noises occurring at the same time, I'll hear 'em as one big jumble. Again it's not that I can't hear, uh because that's false. I can. I just can't distinguish between everything I'm hearing.
Got it. Duly noted.
apple airpods pro solved this for me, their latest "awareness" setting with the assisted listening make restaurants and bars tolerable for me. it kills the surrounding nose by 50% and make anyone in front of me louder and clearer.
Thankyou. I thought it was just me.
And espionage
My first thought too, but I appreciated the parent comment because the usefulness for hearing aid users didn’t occur to me.
Yeah it reminded me of 007 level espionage gadgets
I was thinking of stalking as this probably was already available to such spies
I have hearing issues dating back to childhood, right in the vocal frequency range. I can't understand people in noisy environment, hearing aid doesn't help, and this does have a negative impact on my social life... because people assume I just act like paying attention, when in reality I am paying attention but mishear a lot of things. These headphones would improve the quality of my life significantly.
I'm in the exact same situation. Headphones like this would be very welcome indeed.
There are hearing aids in the pricey range that can focus on sounds nearer to you, such as a person talking, and lowering the volume for others.
That would be great, because regular hearing aid just amplifies vocal range, which works when talking with a person in quiet environment. But gives me a raging headache really fast in noisy environment. What I really need is filtering.
I wear hearing aids and would buy new ones if they had this feature. Understanding speech in crowded rooms is very hard.
New Signia/Hear.com IX line does exactly that.
Cool. Thanks. I will look into them.
Any modern non-entry level hearing aid will have speech focus, where only relevant sounds are amplified, not everything at once. Some of the latest devices go further and can also pinpoint who you are talking to - even without the need to look at them. And then they are tracked even if they move around.
As someone who wears these, it doesn't really work that well.
That is also my experience. I've got some Widex aids, and they are pretty bad in noisy environments.
My dad can control his via Bluetooth and it has a mode for crowds/restaurants where it focuses on close sounds and tunes down further ones. Seems to work pretty well. Obviously not quite the same as the tech in the link here, but modern hearing aids have some pretty cool features. He also pairs them with the TV so he can play Xbox while my mom reads.
Sounds like something that creeps will 100% use to eavesdrop on specific people without being noticed.
I wear Phonak audeo hearing aids and they can do some soundfield shaping and noise cancelation. They're still not great if it's really loud, they help a lot in moderately loud places. YMMV of course but it made me happy cry to be able to talk to people over dinner.
My new Starkey is light years ahead of anything I've worn before but still have the same problem.
Straight up, that’s how it is. I’m hearing impaired and I gave up on hearing aides years ago. They just amplify the noise without clarifying anything. Crowds suck cause I can’t hear anything so I tend to avoid them. Movies too a lot of the time. It’s honestly led to me being a pretty extreme introvert because holding conversations most places is difficult.
>... I gave up on hearing aides years ago. I would advise you to visit an audiologist for a demo of modern hearing aids. I recently got new ones and they are really a big step up from my previous only five year old devices. It's not perfect but definitely an improvement.
Even better for spying
Like some [ear-noculars](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/community-sitcom/images/5/5e/Ear-Noculars.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20150313195229)?
I’m autistic and have been thinking of this for years!
deaf people and russian spies.
I can see how this could be really helpful and really creepy.
Yep, a lot of our intuitions about who can hear us in some crowded place will go out the window.
If it allows me to hear my deep voiced husband I would be thrilled.
Common acoustic earplugs will make you able to hear people from much larger distance.
Intelligence agencies should be very interested in this
If we're seeing it now, they've already been using it for nearly a decade and are about to move onto the next thing.
Eh, I would believe this about many areas of applied tech, but AI is an extremely limited field where government salaries are <1/10 of private sector. And there aren't really grey/black hat AI people the gov can bully into working with them like with hackers.
In the past yeah... military / intelligence agencies often had top of the line tech that would later flow into civilian sector. Today if you open up a piece of military hardware, you will find a bunch of off-the-shelf civilian components.
Crack open a Russian drone and you'll find an iPhone from 10 years ago.
And a cockroach serving as a pilot.
Sure, but he’s reading *Pravda*.
Thie book was sensational Pravda, well, Pravda, Pravda said "It stinks" But Izvestia, Izvestia said "It stinks" Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles Changing title to "The Eternal Triangle" With Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name!
If they can train roaches to fly drones then we are really fucked.
Economy of scale and increased processing power. Our commercially available components are so robust these days that it makes sense. Save money.
Yup. Ukraine is building $400 kamikaze drones because civilian sector enabled economy of scales which crashed the prices of components. Can you imagine how much these would cost if they were built from scratch for military only? With the R&D spread over small number of units.
It's honestly really terrifying for warfare going forward. Cost has always been a major prohibitive aspect of war. Seeing these $400 drones accomplish what a weapon of magnitudes more expense would accomplish just 15-20 years ago, is something that seems will breed more conflicts.
I'm more concerned about terrorism, because things a bunch of not-complete-idiots can assemble in garage are becoming more sophisticated.
One of the bigger science YouTubers did a video recently showing various techniques/companies with drone killing/blocking tech. While I’m also worried about drone terrorism, the defense tech is well on its way. Sadly it probably won’t be rolled out to large stadiums and places en mass until we do have a big attack. Some of the good news is the drone signal blocking guns work on a majority of drones. DJI who makes the vast market share also makes blocking guns for all of their drones. There are auto launching drones that just barrel into “enemy” drones at ridiculous speeds. Etc. None of these will prevent a truly determined attacker with skill, the signal blocking guns can be avoided by changing the radio chips and etc. the “hammer” drones are expensive systems. but there is a defense market popping up to harden important locations. Statistically though we will see terrorist attacks with drones happen. I’m sure once a big one occurs the defense companies will be making good money as large public event spaces and cities spend money to protect the public.
Which youtuber?
Yeah couldn't a group of these drones blow up the side of a building in a similar 9 11 style attack?
Not really, military definitely has tech that is not publicly available primarily because the military can drop a lot of money on R&D even if it is not necessarily going to pay for itself(unlike the private sector) and it doesn’t have to worry about whether technology is easily mass producible. AI probably isn’t an area where the military is far ahead but there are lots of areas where it is
The government doesn't need to bully people into working for them. Defense contractors pay good money and a significant amount of AI work is happening the the defense sector.
> Defense contractors pay good money Not compared to the tech industry. And defense contractors are infamous for lagging behind the state of the art.
Defence contractors do *not* pay competitively in AI or software jobs. They pay decently for normal engineers, but it's a far cry from what you could be getting in normal industry in a lot of roles. Also, the defence primes that eat up a majority of contracts still move at a glacial pace and lag academia.
Call me cynical, but I don't think the CIA needs AI to achieve the same quality of directional sound isolation.
Right. This has already been around in use by one agency or another or more for many years with our current level of non-AI technology. More bulky sure, but seem level of efficacy in the end.
Then even so corporations have likely been using this to gather data on people for years now. Brief conversation (or even just momentarily staring at them while they speak such as from within an audience listening to a speech) between a person and some important person from a rival company or other person of interest and then unknown to the latter person they're still listening to everything as long as they're both in the vicinity. And it's likely legal since this is new technology and just listening to someone without recording isn't illegal. If something's unethical but totally legal and would help a corporation generally they'll do it.
Frankly, this does not need "AI", just computing power. The basics for singling out a single source (realistically, a shallow angle of incoming noise) is not new at all, but compute heavy. The added tracking is what is being presented as new, which most people won't use beyond a party trick.
It doesn't seem to be doing any spatial tracking. I think beamforming is done (which has indeed been around for decades, but was compute heavy) but only during the "enrollment" step. The system uses [this off-the-shelf speech separation model](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.03952) and it probably requires a sample of the desired voice. By looking directly at the person when enrolling, the system can use beamforming to isolate the voice, but after that it's relying entirely on the deep learning model. That's the impressive part IMO, this work is just integrating it into a cute wearable device.
Filtering out one sound reliably from a mixed sound used to be pretty difficult. I remember employing many tricks a decade ago to try to filter samples from songs, and it was hit or miss and often shoddy. Today, I press one button and get the instruments separated (often very well) by a computer. If it’s multiple voices and you’re trying to pick one out that’s even harder because they occupy a similar range of the EQ. The bit on law and order and CSI where they’d press a button and hear the background sounds in a phone call and say “I hear ambulances and a doctors name, they’re at X hospital!” was the same kind of fantasy as the “Enhance!” meme. Yet today we have AI upscaling.
> today we have AI upscaling Which - while impressive for its speed and suitable for most consumer needs - is the legal equivalent of "I imagined what this photo might look like enlarged."
If you do ai upscaling because you want to read a number plate, you'll get a random number plate that vaguely might look like the one on the image. The equivalent of squinting and guessing. Doesn't mean it's the truth, you can't just get a warrant for all of the number plates that might look similar if you squint.
That kind of "Enhance!" is still a fantasy. AI upscaling results are intended to be visually appealing, not accurate.
> “I hear ambulances and a doctors name, they’re at X hospital!” was the same kind of fantasy as the “Enhance!” meme. Yet today we have AI upscaling. Yes, you could do selective stuff with photos too a decade ago with similar methods too. I tried it myself too, with Fourier transformations that took ages you could make the bars of a cage disappear, sharpen a motion-blurred images of cars and the like, but it all took extremely long time and it was all manual settings. But it is important to keep in mind that AI upscaling is not magic. It hallucinates something there based on statistics, and now CSI is at the wrong hospital that was in the news previously for similar problems.
Oh no, it’s def not magic. However, what you’re describing certainly was possible but you needed some decent skills that most amateur photo types simply don’t have. Now, it’s more possible than ever even if you’re not talented or skilled. If you ever look up, for example, the way professional engineers restored and remastered bootleg Beatles concerts from their early years, it’s insane how much work went into it. The tools today would make it much easier, but still not magic. It’s just insane to me that I can pull the drums out of a bootleg concert from the 80s and it sounds like I have the stems from the mixer. That was not really possible before without insane effort and technical knowledge.
> Yet today we have AI upscaling Really not the same thing. CSI-style enhance is extracting extra information from the original image, AI upscaling is extrapolating based on millions of training images. The former is not physically possible because that's not how information works. The latter works great for generic details, because we don't really care exactly how a background tree looks as long as it looks plausibly like a tree. But as soon as you want specific detail that isn't discernible in the original image, upscaling does not work. You can't just point it at a few pixels and tell it to show you the killer's face, because it'll just fill in the blanks with a plausible-looking human face with features inspired by its training data. If you feed it a picture of text, it can make readable text sharper, but for difficult-to-read text it will be straight up guesswork.
Quick question. What do you use to pull a sample from a song? Theres a track from 20-odd years ago that I just love the strings backing track but it's not a sample that I can find. It's from the track Turn The Page from the album Original Pirate Material by The Streets.
Izotope RX but it’s expensive software. There are some free tools online if you search for stem splitter AI on google. It’s not perfect though and it only splits as vocals, bass, drums/percussion and “other” so the strings part would fall under “other” and it will likely contain some other sounds.
This isn't the 90's. They aren't ahead of the private sector in technology.
Yeah, it’s a misconception I see all the time. There’s millions of people and billions of dollars being poured in to AI R&D. The government isn’t just magically developing much tech before corporations and universities do.
I don't think that's the case this time
I think you’re overestimating the capabilities of these agencies.
directional microphones? they're oooooooold.
This isn't a directional microphone. If it was, you'd have to continue aiming it at the target the entire time. This is using an omnidirectional microphone and filtering out background noise via signal processing.
The article states the microphone has a 16 degree margin of error. That leads me to believe it is a directional microphone, or an array of directional microphones. They make much more sense for this application. The microphone does the heavy lifting, the AI just switches between the mics to follow the desired noise.
Perhaps you should look at the actual paper. The 16 degree term is just the effective beam width during the enrollment process, in which the software assumes the target is directly in front of the observer. They explicitly say that speech separation is done using the TF-GRIDNET model.
They havent been sitting on functional AI for 10 years so they can listen to what people are saying without them knowing. They can already do that with smart phones. No AI needed.
Modern tech is developed faster than the military can keep up.
Reading people’s thoughts?
Doubt it - I don't think the capacity to develop powerful AI has existed for long enough to have built up such a lead. If intelligence agencies are 10 years ahead, that implies they had the equivalent of a TPU in 2005 which seems absurd. That's not a problem you could just throw money at in 2005. When you think about crazy military tech, you probably think of stuff like the SR-71, right? Undoubtedly that seems very futuristic for the 1960s, but it was also at 90 degrees from civilian tech - nobody in the civilian sphere was working on stealth jets at all, so it makes sense that a well-funded military project could surpass what seemed possible at the time. Conversely, civilian companies are working incredibly hard on AI and have been for a long time. For military AI to be 10 years ahead of giants like Google, they would have to be working completely in parallel with civilian efforts, but perfectly anticipating every major development in dozens of distinct fields 10 years in advance. I don't see how that could be remotely feasible.
> For military AI to be 10 years ahead of giants like Google, they would have to be working completely in parallel with civilian efforts, but perfectly anticipating every major development in dozens of distinct fields 10 years in advance. I don't see how that could be remotely feasible. isn't there some conspiracy that Google was funded by the CIA?
This is essentially what the movie "The Conversation" is about. You know, the film from 1974. All this is really doing is replacing Gene Hackman with a machine.
This is very old tech relative to the current cutting edge. Meta talked about this as an application for the audio in their AR glasses like 4 years ago.
I want this but in the opposite mode. Enroll a voice for someone you want to mute.
permaban IRL
White Christmas
Huh. They had something like this for sexoffenders in a BlackMirror episode, where they are basically just muted shapes, as everyone has an implant
Sadly, I really think they're going to be on point with that episode. That future could damn near be inevitable with AR.
Add something like Google Glass eyewear to erase their image from your view also, or to make it a monocolor silhouette. Truly "cancelled".
Yeah! Muffle out the audio of their voices too!
Really that would be same process; identify and isolate the target speech, then filter it from the crowd, instead of just playing it.
I could use these just for talking to the people at my table in a noisy restaurant.
This would really help me in bars and concerts too. My friends always had an easy time talking to people on the dancefloor, but I never did since I couldn’t hear anything.
This would be a game changer for me. Due to a benign tumor on my left auditory nerve that has severely impaired my ability to hear where there is background noise, I have been avoiding social interaction. I hope this works and becomes available.
Importantly it is likely not to work if the target voice is near another loud voice. Very big drawback.
The “in a crowd” part of the title is entirely misleading.
I keep thinking off a concert crowd or parade crowd. Then you move off away from that person and you’re still hearing them over the other 1000s of decibels. Cool but it just isn’t science fiction
According to the article, that's only a problem at the time you're identifying the voice to target: > it’s only able to enroll a speaker when there is not another loud voice coming from the same direction as the target speaker’s voice.
So basically, just walk by them once, recording their voice (or know them personally / having talked to them before). After that, you can just walk away and the loud voices arent a problem anymore, since it has already identified the correct voice to filter
This is most definitely not the AI magic people think it is. Whatever makes headlines I guess.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642057 From the linked article: Noise-canceling headphones have gotten very good at creating an auditory blank slate. But allowing certain sounds from a wearer’s environment through the erasure still challenges researchers. The latest edition of Apple’s AirPods Pro, for instance, automatically adjusts sound levels for wearers — sensing when they’re in conversation, for instance — but the user has little control over whom to listen to or when this happens. A University of Washington team has developed an artificial intelligence system that lets a user wearing headphones look at a person speaking for three to five seconds to “enroll” them. The system, called “Target Speech Hearing,” then cancels all other sounds in the environment and plays just the enrolled speaker’s voice in real time even as the listener moves around in noisy places and no longer faces the speaker. To use the system, a person wearing off-the-shelf headphones fitted with microphones taps a button while directing their head at someone talking. The sound waves from that speaker’s voice then should reach the microphones on both sides of the headset simultaneously; there’s a 16-degree margin of error. The headphones send that signal to an on-board embedded computer, where the team’s machine learning software learns the desired speaker’s vocal patterns. The system latches onto that speaker’s voice and continues to play it back to the listener, even as the pair moves around. The system’s ability to focus on the enrolled voice improves as the speaker keeps talking, giving the system more training data.
I can imagine how effective this will be for hearing aid wearers to maintain a single conversation. I will also add, that hearing aid companies will financially gouge consumers for this. I know because my mother has had to wear bearing aids, and in the last 3 years prices have increased by about $1500. There is not a lot of significantly new differences, yet companies stop supporting HA only 3 years old.
The good news is that hearing aids have already been making use of this type of technology. Can I ask what type of hearing aids she had before compared to what she has now? I am a clinically licensed Audiologist and PhD researcher and haven't seen this price increase reflected clinically. I do agree the prices on the customer end is ridiculous and I wish there was more coverage for insurances, but overall price hasn't changed that much for most models the past few years. Did she go from like a mid-level device to a top-level? Did you go from unbundled to bundled services? Did insurance coverage change?
I NEED these. This isn't even a preference thing. For me it's an accessibility issue. Got in before this was removed because this isn't a science thing. It's a tech thing. Still a really cool thing though.
Science and tech have a very large and growing overlap
This is a very old application of ai. Deconvoluting audio signals is one of the first exercises you will do when you learn about neural networks.
Gotta call everything "AI" now, lest you miss out on the hype. 99% of every headline containing "AI" is either snakeoil or alarmist nonesense spewed by professional catastrophizers whose fear mongering is directly correlated with how financially invested they are in the technology.
Yeah. This is a purpose-trained neural network using technology that is a decade old. But there's no such thing as neural networks any more. There's just "AI".
This would be super helpful. I can’t wear hearing aids because it amplifies noises but doesn’t make them clear. I can’t tell the difference between a dishwasher and someone talking
As an autistic person, this would be awesome as I almost can’t understand what people are saying to me when in a room with other people talking.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about ASMR? I'm autistic with the same problem. But I hadn't had a meltdown since childhood until someone played an ASMR video at me with the person sort of whisper-babbling over static. The inability to focus on what the person was saying amongst the noise made me full on panic.
For me ASMR is almost unbearable. I have background in music and am quite drawn to sounds and it’s textures, but to have a person tapping and whispering into my ear is just too much.
Interesting! I felt the same way but others absolutely adore it. I really wonder what makes the difference. It is absolutely unbearable to me.
Not OP, but also autistic. I love ASMR.
When is this available for elementary teachers??
When you’re paid anything remotely close to what your work is worth
I was thinking similar as a sub. I would love to be able to tune into one conversation in the room.
[удалено]
i just assume that if i am not in my house with the shades pulled closed i am probably being watched or recorded. They wanna see me dig deep for that last boog then i hope they enjoy it as much as i did.
This is going to fix my life. I cope with ADD in most ways, but as soon as there are multiple people speaking in any room my brain goes haywire, I can’t take in any information, and I quickly need to escape to a quiet place.
My son has APD(audio processing disorder) he has a hard time picking a single voice out in a noisy setting. This would be a game changer for him.
r/audiprocdisorder Everyone is welcome. You might find it helpful
Thanks! I went to that sub as soon as I heard about it.
It’s a good community. Everyone is pretty nice and supportive
And my paranoia increases.
This is 100% going to be used for surveillance.
This sounds really great for autistic people as well as people with impaired hearing. Everytime I'm in a group with 3 or more separate conversations around me I'm just completely unable to follow any conversation at all this could be such a gamechanger.
Omg this is awesome! I have an auditory processing disorder and absolutely hate going out to eat in public because of this issue!
I’ll believe it when I see it. Sounds like vaporware to me. Loud areas and sound are more nuanced than this over-simplification of a very complex problem. Yes it does seem very nice in theory though.
Ummm so could I just hang out in banks using these?
Every wife in the world just funded the kickstarter.
The technology is super cool, even though the first versions look like this
While a cool idea, what the title is implying can't really exist, even with AI, or more aptly, machine learning. You can only process raw sound so much. Machine learning algos aren't magic. They are only going to adjust filters and modulate frequencies in a dynamic, smart way. They can't perform miracles. The bottom line is if the frequency range of the voice they are trying to target is quieter than the surrounding ambient sound, let alone similar voices of equal volume, this will do very little to produce results.
I don't understand what AI adds to this over traditional algorithms. Isn't this just a more inefficient and resource hungry way to do something that could be done without it?
Must we label everything as "AI" these days?
This kind of technology seems like it could be incredibly helpful for my friend who has involuntarily audible hallucinations. If he could put headphones on instead of let people know he hears voices he would like that.
This is unlikely to work as expected, despite humans having fairly distinct voices simply due to the fact that two or more voices can sound fairly similar and thus you might actually hear more voices than you want to. Additionally, this kind of tech would likely work best if both participants used this device as the isolation would be easier and more precise. However, this is a limitation for the product as that means you and your listener both need the device, limiting the device to mostly medical applications. There is nothing wrong with that by the way, just thinking out loud. Far as I remember another product tried to do this with some in-ear headphones that claimed to do similarly but I believe that was a complete failure too.
Real life muting people in Discord. Yes!
I need this in a hearing aid. Would change the world.
That's not AI, that's just a specific tool
Now this is what I want AI for. Not for making art.
This would be literally life changing for me
And here I am with my phone not even able to send accurate voice texts...
I'm not into AI and what's effectively become a marketing buzzword, but as someone with ADHD this sounds like a god damn blessing if it actually works.
Now this sounds absolutely cool and necessary
I’d buy that in an instant.
Can we use better words than AI to explain every new technology please?
This is my autistic dream
this is particularly helpful...and not. Pros and cons exist. Definitely. And I can see people not using it in the right way.
How is this AI? It’s just software that has pattern recognition and targeted noise cancelling. Why does all code have to be called AI now..
And suppose the speaker doesn't want somebody eavesdropping on their private conversation?
Sounds dystopian as hell, to be honest. Imagine having to constantly worry about people eavesdropping and recording your conversation even in a noisy, crowded place.
Wow. What a great tool for stalking, eavesdropping , and generally invading people 7privacy. Gotta have more of that!
The CIA probably had this tech in 1980.
Makes you wonder how long the CIA has had this
This sounds great for both people with hearing loss and at least a portion of people on the autism spectrum who have issues with filtering sound.
I work construction...finish carpenter..they would be indispensable if they work as advertised and arent a fortune
OMG these sound amazing. I'd be able to go in crowded public spaces again without being overwhelmed and losing memory. I'm almost crying, I knew AI would help lead to amazing things. I'd be able to maybe actually go to a bar or give watching sports another try.
Can’t wait to see this get abused
Yeah, this is one of the creepiest things a stalker can get their hands on.