So, I don’t wish to stir things up or slam hearing aid makers here because I think all makers are going to be guilty of this to a certain extent, but it really does worry me more and more quite obviously fake or treated demos of AI noise reduction. Take this one for example. I was a sound designer in a previous life and I know, I can just hear that this sound has been tampered with, background noise volume reduced by editing the recording etc. The plane take off is a dead give away in this video because hearing aids just don’t reproduce frequencies that low so removing them is very obviously done by hand.
My frustration is showing, but I am extremely disappointed in the hype associated with every manufacturer in this industry. In reality, hearing aids have come a long way and we should all be thankful. But in my opinion none even come close to the “break thru” in the ads. It makes me very resentful as these ads trap a lot of unknowing people into spending money many of them do not have. Wish we have a more objective method of evaluating the true performance of these new aids. Told you my frustration is showing
Guys this has been going on since the very beginning, you check the marketing blurb for most models and platforms going back a very long way, it’s always made me laugh, the story of Pinocchio is what comes to mind, it’s obviously a rort but we just want it to be true, like anything else in the medical industry, their prying on people’s emotions, a form of manipulation to “up sell” with some really wild claims going on out there!
True it has always been going on, but I feel this is a bit different because now, very obviously fake demos are being made, people hear those and go wow that’s impressive I wanna get something that gives me that much clarity. There is a difference I feel in saying something and showing something. Now they can get away with it they’d say oh it’s just an example etc etc but we all know what they’re up to. If I told you a car could pull a house along behind it, you’d take it with a very heavy pinch of salt. If I showed you the car doing that, but later you realised the house was made of paper but cleverly disguised, you might feel differently That’s how I feel about it anyway.
Oh yeah I get what your saying, although videos have been made for a longtime as well, depicting how well their products “work” in certain circumstances and environments, long before even YouTube, but your right this AI thing we’re getting into now is gonna change this even more, lots of fake crap on the interwebs and getting harder to tell what’s real, but I’d stick with the age old and good old saying, if it too good to be true then it most likely is, ha we shouldn’t downplay this, as we may even need AI to help weed out the fake AI!
That’s how I feel about it anyway.