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Block's internal AI research lab released the full-duplex speech-to-speech model Dessa on October 23. According to Unite.AI, the model was trained entirely from scratch on human conversational speech, can listen and speak simultaneously, and natively perceives emotion, sarcasm, and laughter; its inference is faster than real time and it can run locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or higher configuration, with the team completing training on a single NVIDIA GB200 NVL72. Block has released demo recordings and a public waitlist, and has opened early access to a small number of AI safety researchers. Other reports note that the model does not rely on a text intermediary and supports full-duplex conversation with the ability to interrupt and interject at any time, and that training consumes hundreds of times fewer tokens than large language models, but the author points out that this is currently only a small-scale research preview from Block's internal lab, the demos were selected by the company, and questions remain about how pure audio models perform on complex multi-step logical reasoning.
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- Source:Unite.AI
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Oct 26
Ayi AI Notes
Jack Dorsey launches native speech model Dessa, which can run full-duplex conversations locally on an M4 Max MacBook
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has launched a native speech model called Dessa, which he says does not rely on text as an intermediary, is trained end-to-end on human conversation audio, can run locally offline at faster-than-realtime speed on a MacBook equipped with an M4 Max, and supports full-duplex conversation with the ability to interrupt and interject at any time. The original article says its training consumes hundreds of times fewer tokens than large language models, and that the entire training used only a single NVIDIA GB200 NVL72. The author also notes that this is currently only a small-scale research preview from a lab inside Block, that the demos were selected by the company, and that questions remain about how a pure-audio model performs on complex multi-step logical reasoning.
Oct 25
IT Home · Artificial Intelligence
Block launches full-duplex speech model Dessa, supporting local operation on MacBook
Block launches the full-duplex speech model Dessa, which can listen to the user's speech while speaking; emotional expression is natively built into the model, and it can simulate states such as laughter, pauses, and choking up. The company says the model can run locally on consumer-grade computers, with the device threshold being MacBooks with M4 Max or higher configurations, and that training used only a single rack of NVIDIA GPUs. At this stage Dessa is not open for public trial; Block is sending testing invitations to safety researchers, focusing on risk scenarios in which such speech agents deceive humans.
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Shao Meng
Block releases Dessa, a full-duplex model trained purely on speech, which can run locally in real time on a MacBook Pro M4 Max
Block, founded by Twitter co-founder Jack, has released Dessa, a speech-to-speech model trained from scratch purely on human speech, with no text and no pretrained base, supporting full duplex so it can listen and speak at the same time. The model claims inference faster than real time and can run locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max and above, and the entire model is said to have been trained on a single NVIDIA GB200 NVL72. The team says its goal is to let the model understand tone and emotion, avoiding the safety risk of continuing to respond without perceiving the other person's distress.
Phoenix Technology
Block launches full-duplex speech model Dessa, supports local operation
Block has launched the full-duplex speech model Dessa, which can listen to the user's speech while speaking, and can simulate emotional expressions such as laughter, pauses, and choking up. The company says it is trained entirely on human speech data, using only a single rack of NVIDIA GPUs for training, and can run locally on MacBooks with M4 Max and higher configurations. At this stage Dessa is not open for public trial; Block is sending testing invitations to security researchers, focusing on risk scenarios in which speech agents deceive humans.
TechCrunch AI
Block releases full-duplex voice model Dessa, which can run locally on consumer-grade GPUs
Block's research lab has released the voice model Dessa, which uses a full-duplex architecture, can listen and speak at the same time, and can run locally on a MacBook M4 Max or a more powerful consumer-grade computer. The model was trained entirely on human speech and a single NVIDIA GPU, and the company says expressions such as emotion, pauses, and laughter are built into the model rather than driven by a text pipeline. Dessa is not currently publicly available, and Block is recruiting security researchers to test the risk that it could be used to deceive conversation partners.
Oct 24
The Decoder
Block releases speech model Dessa, trained entirely on human speech
Block has released the speech model Dessa, which it says is the first AI model trained from scratch entirely on human speech, without any text data. Dessa processes audio directly rather than first converting it to text, allowing it to capture emotion, sarcasm, laughter, and pauses in real time. It supports full-duplex communication and can run locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max, with training performed on a single NVIDIA GB200 NVL72. The model has not yet been made public, and the team is recruiting AI safety researchers to test potential risks.
Numerama
Block releases speech model Dessa, trained only on human conversation and able to run locally
Block releases speech model Dessa, saying it is trained only on human conversation, without using text or pretrained models. Dessa uses a full-duplex approach, allowing it to keep listening while speaking and to interject, laugh, or respond; Block says it can run locally on MacBook Pro models with M4 Max and above chips. Dessa is currently a research preview, with no release date or pricing, and early access is open only to a small number of AI safety researchers.
Testing Catalog
Jack Dorsey releases full-duplex speech model Dessa
Jack Dorsey announced the launch of the full-duplex speech model Dessa, calling it the most realistic full-duplex speech model to date, with conversations featuring emotion, tone changes, pauses, and natural rhythm. The model is trained only on voice conversations, without using text data or pretrained models, and currently only demo samples are available. Dorsey said speech is the most natural way to interact with intelligence.
Unite.AISelected
Block releases full-duplex speech model Dessa, trained from scratch using only human conversation data
Block's internal AI research lab released the full-duplex speech-to-speech model Dessa on October 23, stating that it was trained entirely from scratch on human conversational speech, can listen and speak simultaneously, and natively perceives emotion, sarcasm, and laughter. The model's inference speed is faster than real time, and it can run locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or higher configuration; the team completed training with a single NVIDIA GB200 NVL72. Block has published demo recordings and a public waitlist, and has opened early access to a small number of AI safety researchers.
The Verge AI
Block releases pure speech dialogue model Dessa
Jack Dorsey's Block releases AI model Dessa, claiming it is trained entirely from scratch on human conversations and is a true speech-to-speech model. The official release showcases several dialogue samples, including a comparison with OpenAI's GPT-Live-1 speech model, in which Dessa appears more natural. Dessa can run locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or higher configuration, and the team says it will open early access to a small group of AI safety researchers.
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