Paul Stenhouse: Apple's new hearing aid and OpenAi's new "reasoning" AI

Apple released a surprising product this week... a hearing aid. 

They were awaiting FDA approval, but today they got it, making it the first over-the-counter hearing aid software device to receive such approval. 

It's more tech for good! Approximately 1.5 billion people around the world are living with hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization. The Apple Hearing Study revealed that 75% of people diagnosed with hearing loss haven’t received the assistive support that they need. 

How does it work? You open the health app to take a hearing test from the comfort of home - it takes about five minutes. It builds an 'audiogram', just like what you'd get at the doctor's office, and uses this to personalize your hearing experience. If you struggle with high, mid, or low tones these will be boosted accordingly allowing you to hear conversations and the environment around you more clearly. It's designed for folks with mild to moderate hearing loss. 

It's worth pointing out that AirPods could be a very successful company all on their own. Apple has sold tens of billions of dollars worth of them, and it's thought there are over 100 million users globally. Typically if someone has their AirPods in it signals 'leave me alone', but not anymore. So, should you, will you, talk to someone with AirPods in? 

 

OpenAI's new AI can 'reason'. 

Get set, we're entering a new phase of AI. Open AI's "o1", the first in a planned series of “reasoning” models that have been trained to answer more complex questions - and they say it can do it faster than a human can. 

It's better at producing code and solving "multistep problems", but it's much slower and more expensive. 

In the qualifying test for the International Mathematics Olympiad, the GPT-4o scored 13%, this new model scored 83%. In an online code competition, it reached the 89th percentile of participants. 

The next model... Open AI says it will perform at the PhD level for physics, chemistry and biology tests. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from news Talk.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Said B.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
To eleven on news Talk said b Apple had its big,
glitzy launch event this week. Our Textbert Paul Stenhouse had
his eye on the various new products being announced, and
I don't know, Paul, My sense was that, yeah, they
were all nice, but they were just in kind of
like little, you know, small improvements on products that already exist.
Is that fair?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Like they launched a new phone. Can you believe it? What? Like?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
No enough?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I know.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Do you know what did catch my eye though?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Apple released a hearing aid.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yes, well that is cool. It is cool.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
They will Yeah, they were waiting on FDA approval and
we found out today they got that FDA approval, which
makes it the first over the counter hearing aid software device.
And I think this is a really big deal, huge deal.
These stats had that one point five billion people around
the world have some form of here loss according to

(01:07):
the World Health Organization. There's quite a few people and
maybe some people that you know, are embarrassed to go
and get tested. There's like a stigma attached to having
a hearing aid. There shouldn't be, obviously, but there is,
and I think that this goes a really long way
about normalizing the process of one going and getting your

(01:29):
hearing tested because with their new earpod Pro twos, you
can do a hearing test at home, in the comfort
of your own home, with your headphones on. And their
study also found to one point five billion people have
hearing loss. Seventy five percent of people actually diagnosed haven't
received any of the help that they should. Right, So

(01:52):
now you can do the test at home, find out
about it, and you can also use your earpod Pro
twos to actually be a hearing aid and we're talking
a medical grade hearing aid here, Jack Wow. Test you
get actually gives you the same audiogram, the same information
that you would get at the hearing that you're hearing
doctor's office, and then it uses that information to then

(02:16):
basically create a profile inside your ear pod protus that
will boost the highs or the lows or the mids
or decrease them or whatever it is that you need
in order to hear, and will do that all by
itself in the palm of your hand, which is rather incredible.
So if you do struggle with listening to people, or

(02:36):
you struggle hearing things going on in your environment. Your
ear pods that are typically also have noise canceling probabties
and you use to listen to music, they can now
also help you hear conversations and the things around you.
I think that's tech for good. I think that's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
This it is very cool. That is very cool for
keen watches of AI technology. Open ai has announced and
you upgrade. That means AI can reason.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah. I actually think this could be a new phase
of AI, which is a big step forward. If you've
ever played with chat, GPT or any of the others,
it gives you an answer really fast, and sometimes that
answer can feel a little bit rushed. What this allows
it to do is to basically go away and think
for a bit, which is rather complex because it can

(03:25):
think now in a series of stages and can think
basically more human like to solve multi step problems. So
I will think about, well, that would be an issue,
but then that would be a cause of effect, and
then that would be a problem, and can actually now
start to think about this. It's a little slower, it's
significantly more expensive to access. But do you want to

(03:47):
hear how scary this is?

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Jack and possums is for you. Yeah, gone, So did
you know there's.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
An International Mathematics Olympiad, the mass Olympics, if you will,
and to qualify the current best or the previously best
gpt A chat GPT four to zero model scored a
thirteen percent to go to that test isn't very good, right,
you're to get in? Yeah, the new model eighty three
percent in an online coding competition, so doing like coding

(04:15):
problems and trying to solve hard things. This new model
got into the eighty nine percent tile of participants. The
next model they think will be able to perform at
PhD level for the types of things that we solve
with the best minds in physics, chemistry and biology.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
And I said it was the next phase.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
It kind of feels like that is very achievable and
very soon. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yes, and it's a big step up PhD level.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
PhD level, that's crazy, absolutely crazy. Thank you so much, Paul.
That's our Textbert Paul Steenthouse.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
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