Unpopular opinion incoming: there’s cool stuff brewing in the world. Microbots might one day mend spinal cords, a petri dish of brain cells can already play video games, and now the prospect of a new wonder: according to a New Yorker article on misophonia (the condition where unwanted noise triggers disproportionate, unpleasant cognitive and physiological reactions), a team of miracle workers are “using machine learning to develop headphones that … can quickly target and eliminate irksome audio”.
Now we’re talking! This project, led by Shyam Gollakota of the University of Washington’s Mobile Intelligence Lab, aims to develop headphones that selectively filter out triggering noises, leaving or enhancing the good sounds. Gollakota offers the example of sitting on a park bench, oblivious to loud talkers next to you but able to hear birdsong.
Imagine the potential – I’m thinking Nobel peace prize. Ridiculous? Maybe, but one study showed a correlation between noise exposure levels and aggression; another of the area around Frankfurt airport found “a 1 decibel increase in average noise levels raises the violent crime rate by 1.6%”. I’m a subclinical misophonia sufferer (or possibly just a misanthrope) and inconsiderate noise makes me fantasise I’m one of those murdering aliens from A Quiet Place.
Aren’t there sounds we’d all love to eliminate? Imagine listening to an interview in which an intensively media-trained politician is sticking doggedly to their script (my body flooded with cortisol just typing that). Now imagine having headphones that filter out every nonsensically on-message utterance, leaving you with just the unvarnished truth: “I … don’t … know”, say. Or: “They told me … to … come here …. and … say nothing … real.” Sweet relief. (Nigel Farage needs a specific frequency blocker. It would create absolute silence the second he draws breath, allowing me the peace to imagine an alternative universe where his influence is limited to annoying some Kent darts club committee members, or something.)
Or here’s a seasonal scenario: the sun comes out between two June hailstorms and you’d love to sit quietly soaking up the warmth, but you can’t, because everyone in a five-mile radius is collaborating on an experimental found-sound symphony of strimming, mowing, leaf-blowing and pressure-washing their driveways. Magic headphones could mute them, dialling up the sound of grass defiantly growing, leaves unfurling and the fecund miracle of quiet, greening life.
A summer noise that is almost as bad as Farage is when a big, stupid fly gets stuck in your kitchen. David Attenborough forgive me, but I become a cold-blooded, rolled-newspaper-armed killer the second I hear one of those fools smashing its body against the window, again and again. Maybe without the manic buzzing, I could live and let live?
Or how about another aural irritant I’d pay a lot never to hear again: an early-morning idling van engine, its driver bellowing on the phone, window down, over a soundtrack of breakfast radio show DJ banter. I would probably live 10 years longer if I could replace that with a fantasy soundtrack of them being arrested and jailed.
Then there was the chilling news, last month, that people (well, psychopaths) can now make calls on British Airways flights. As we all know, the godawful work and personal calls of other people are bad enough on a bus or train, but imagine a long-haul flight. It’s particularly cruel because aircraft cabin sound is soothing brown noise – there are Spotify playlists of it! Eliminate 28B repeatedly touching base to talk pitch tactics or 37E explaining that her psychic says she’s a highly sensitive empath (despite all appearances to the contrary), and you’re left with the perfect soundscape to switch off and relax.
These are just mine – the magic of these headphones, really, would be in selecting your own personal triggers. Next door’s yappy chihuahua but not your telly tuned to The Dog House; the tinny, brain-boring melody of your child’s favourite electronic toy (without muting your actual kid); the man upstairs doing his nightly Riverdance but not the dead-of-night blackbird singing outside the window; your partner chewing, but not the moment they ask if you fancy an ice-cream. Just imagine: your own bloodless, forensic, sound sniper. Suddenly, the future feels brighter than we feared.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
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