Picking up on tone of voice, body language, what’s left unsaid - these are all part of being what’s called a good listener. Not everybody has the wit or subtlety or emotional intelligence to notice what are sometimes non-verbal cues: we all have a friend or colleague for whom the penny doesn't drop, who often is slow to read the room. Such tone-deafness could be about to get shown up even more, going by research carried out the Max Planck Institute, which suggests that artificial intelligence systems could be within range of the best of us when it comes to listening for and sussing out feeling...