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Block Releases Human-Sounding AI
What Dessa sounds like // Image by Kait Cunniff with DALL-E
Block announced a new AI voice model that sounds disconcertingly human.
Why It Hits: Top AI companies know that voice is going to be the primary way people interact with AI agents. It’s already influencing upcoming devices and changing office behavior. The perceived problem is that AI still doesn’t sound human enough to make people forget they’re talking to a chatbot. Block thinks it’s built the solution.
Behind The Voice: Block’s Dessa model is perking up ears across Silicon Valley.
According to TechCrunch, Dessa is “a full-duplex model, which means it can talk and listen at the same time.”
Trained solely on human speech and conversational data, Dessa “laughs, pauses, and cries” while talking with you… and there are plenty of examples that eerily back it up. It’s uncanny.
Dessa runs entirely locally, meaning you can use it on a good consumer laptop like a MacBook M4 Max.
Last Call: In a blog post, Block wrote that “the most powerful AIs in the world can’t hear how you feel. We think that’s ridiculous, leads to a worse experience, and is potentially dangerous.” Apparently, the company feels the latter is also true of Dessa. The model isn’t publicly available yet, and the company is asking researchers to test it for safety issues.
In other words, Block knows that if you thought AI-generated scams were bad, you ain’t seen — or heard — nothing yet.
The Future: Block’s various products are geared toward optimizing consumer-facing business operations… so Dessa could be the final piece of the puzzle that lets clients eventually automate retail stores or restaurants. Think of Dessa as the new customer-service employee.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.
