Block shows Dessa, a voice model that talks and listens at once
On October 23, Block announced Dessa, a voice chat model. It laughs, pauses and carries emotion, and runs on a personal computer. It is not public yet.
Block showed a program that talks with you and listens at the same time. It laughs and pauses like a person. It is only for testing now and not open to everyone yet.
Hype check
Louder than it deserves. The real change is smaller.
Our editorial opinion, based on the sources below. How we score
Your call: hype or real?
Real = it will matter in daily use. Hype = louder than it is. One vote, and it can’t be changed.
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Why it matters
Voice models that run on the device itself could cut costs and open new uses for small businesses.
Watch: AI voices are getting closer to natural talk.
The details
- The model turns speech into speech directly, and can talk and listen at the same time.
- It produces laughter, pauses and crying, with emotion built into the model, per Block.
- Block says it was trained only on human speech, on a single Nvidia GPU.
- It can run locally on hardware such as a MacBook M4 Max or better.
- It is not public; Block asked safety researchers to test it, including whether a voice could deceive people.
Receipts
One trusted outlet reports it. Not confirmed yet. Open the sources and check us.
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