AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them just once

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.