Our innovative hearing aid technology utilizes AI to identify your surroundings to produce more realistic sound at all times. That way you can hear the crisp sounds of leaves, laughter from your loved ones, and the comforting crackle of a fire without adjusting your device.

– Actual Advertising Copy, Brand Name Withheld

'You're really going to like this,' the audiologist promised, adjusting the new and surprisingly lightweight devices. She stepped back.

Aline listened. Since the audiologist wasn't talking, she expected to hear nothing. After all, this was an office with a drop ceiling, that bane of the hearing-impaired that muffled all sound. Besides, what was there to hear?

She heard: a soft whisper. Ah, forced-air heating. And then, surprising, the sound of. . .

'Water?' she said.

The audiologist beamed as if she had pulled off a magic trick. 'That's right!' She removed a small screen (with the logo 'SmartEarz™') from her desk to reveal. . . a little ceramic windmill, completely with artificially flowing brook. Which was. . .

'. . . babbling,' said Aline aloud, surprised.

The audiologist clapped her hands. The sound was sharp in the small room, not dull and muffled, as Aline would have expected. 'Wait until you hear all the things you've been missing!'

'It's certainly an impressive improvement,' said Aline, fingering the tiny device in her ears.

'We have AI to thank. This SmartEarz™ technology restores all the ambient sounds. It's uncanny what it knows.' She smiled broadly as she escorted Aline to the front desk. 'And it's only five years of monthly payments. The usual guarantee and free maintenance, of course!'

'Of course,' murmured the client, fishing in her handbag for credit card and reading glasses.

'AI has made great strides in vision technology,' said the ophthalmologist, a smug little man with a shaved head and fashionable chin beard. 'This new pair of lightweight glasses will interact with your lens implants using CleverEyze™ to fill in all the details you've been missing.'

'And it's safe?'

Laughter. 'Of course it's safe! I've done. . . er, dozens of these already. Let's get your paperwork set up. Medicare will pay most of it. . . '

A crisp fall day. The sky was a flawless blue. The leaves were red and gold. A few drifted lazily across the path where Aline walked. From the top of a nearby tree came the call of a blackbird. . .

'What?' yelped Aline.

'Are you sure?' asked the audiologist.

'European blackbirds do not breed in the Pennsylvania woods,' said Aline firmly. 'Either your technology is wonky, or we've got a major ornithological mystery on our hands.'

A quick phone call to headquarters (Duluth, Minnesota) resulted in some keyboard tapping and this explanation from a now-beaming-again audiologist: 'The SmartEarz™ technology uses AI to identify and enhance ambient sounds in your environment. To do that, it accesses an extensive database of sounds common to the region where you live. As it turns out, your hearing aids were inadvertently set to the wrong region.'

'Wrong region, wrong bird?'

Enthusiastic nod. 'Yes! I've reset it for you. Would you like to be able to do it yourself? I can let you have a pocket device of your own – for a small extra charge, of course.'

'Of course.'

A winter's day in a deep and dark December. Aline brushed away snow and sat on the park bench. The only sound was the droning of traffic from the nearby interstate. She tuned that out and heard the juncos in the bushes.

She laughed. 'Star Wars birds.' Indeed, they sounded like science fiction laser guns firing, pew-pew-pew.

'Luke, I am your father!' A tiny white-bellied bird looked at her as if to say, are you nuts, lady?

Obeying a sudden impulse, Aline took out her hearing-aid remote. She fiddled with the settings. The junco opened its mouth. Out came the sound of an Amazonian ant-bird.

Aline laughed. This could be fun.

The visual technology turned out to be even better.

With a little nudging, Aline discovered that her two adjustment devices could be hooked up to apps on her smartphone. (Progress in this area was rapid.) Now she could make all the changes herself.

She didn't like the audiologist's grin, so she spoofed CleverEyze™ into thinking she was watching cartoons. She thought the audiologist looked much better as Miss Piggy. The ophthalmologist's grating Midwestern twang was successfully replaced with the pleasant voice of the late Jim Nabors. Now, whenever the specialist was about to pontificate on the accomplishments of himself and his tech-savvy colleagues, he'd burst out with, 'Go-o-lly!'

It was all Aline could do to keep from laughing.

It was beautiful in the rainforest. Aline sat happily beneath the canopy, admiring the flowers and listening to the calls of innumerable wild birds. In her lap was a tablet with an electronic edition of Humboldt's Contemplations on the Sublime Phenomena of Creation. She was sipping a mimosa in deference to the setting. Unfortunately, it still tasted like coke. Aline made a mental note to suggest an innovation in taste research. Now, what kind of -ologist would that be? she wondered.

'Ma'am?' Aline looked up to see a friendly llama peering down at her.

'What are you doing here?' she said, confused. 'You belong in the Andes.'

'You can't sit here, ma'am,' said the llama, thoughtfully refraining from spitting in her direction. 'See that crane over there? It's getting ready to knock down the old K-mart. You'll have to read your book somewhere else.'

Aline looked up, startled, as the giraffe approached, dragging a beach ball. 'You're quite right, honey: something's wrong here. That thing is on entirely the wrong continent. I'll have to go back to the shop with this.'

And Aline and the nice young policeman walked slowly away from the construction site.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

21.10.24 Front Page

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