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Summary: University of Washington researchers have developed AI-powered “proactive hearing assistant” headphones that automatically isolate conversation partners in noisy environments by detecting turn-taking speech rhythms. According to researchers, the system is fast enough to avoid confusing audio lag for the user, and can currently juggle one to four conversation partners in addition to the wearer’s audio. Potential Hearing Aid Use The current prototype uses commercial over-the-ear headphones, microphones, and circuitry. The team combined off-the-shelf noise-canceling headphones with binaural microphones to create the prototype, pictured here. Photo: Hu et al./EMNLP Summary: University of Washington researchers have developed AI-powered “proactive hearing assistant” headphones that automatically isolate conversation partners in noisy environments by detecting turn-taking speech rhythms. According to researchers, the system is fast enough to avoid confusing audio lag for the user, and can currently juggle one to four conversation partners in addition to the wearer’s audio. Potential Hearing Aid Use The current prototype uses commercial over-the-ear headphones, microphones, and circuitry.