Jack Dorsey's Block unveils Dessa, an AI model trained only on human speech

Block, Jack Dorsey's company, announced Dessa, a speech-to-speech AI model trained from scratch on nothing but human conversation. It can run locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or better, and early access will go to a small group of AI safety researchers.

• Dessa is trained from scratch on human speech only, with no text data
• The model runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or better
• Early access goes to a small group of AI safety researchers
• Stated goals: curiosity, better human-AI understanding, and safety