01Block's Dessa Voice Model Learns to Talk From Speech Alone [AI Models & Research]Jack Dorsey's Block unveiled Dessa, a speech-to-speech model trained only on human conversation, with no text stage, so laughter, pauses and hesitation survive the call. It runs locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max, and Block has invited safety researchers to probe it before any public release. → source
02New Benchmark Shows AI Agents Stray When Key Facts Go Missing [AI Models & Research]AI agents decide what they may do from what their tools tell them; when a tool response omits a safety-relevant fact, a new benchmark shows agents will carry out actions a human would forbid, even though nothing they saw was false. EpiSEM-Bench turns that blind spot into a standard test. → source
03Ollama Learns to Speak: Local Text-to-Speech Arrives on the Mac [AI Tools & Ecosystem]The local-AI platform can now turn text into speech, starting with Gradium's Phonon models in five languages, and it can read chat replies aloud as they stream. The main model is Apache 2.0-licensed and runs on Apple Silicon today; Windows and Linux support is coming. → source
04The AI Graveyard Grows: 42% of AI Bets Get Abandoned [AI Tools & Ecosystem]TechCrunch keeps a running list of AI bets that shut down, pivoted or missed expectations, from Relay's workflow service (staff landed on Google's Chrome team) to OpenAI's rolled-back super-app redesign and its costly video app Sora. S&P Global counts about 42% of AI initiatives abandoned by their corporate parents. → source
05Forced to Pick a Candidate, Grok Goes Right and GPT Left [AI Applications & Industry]Asking two AI models to name one candidate in nearly 500 midterm races, a new study found Grok 4.7 chose the Republican 92% of the time and GPT-6.1 Sol chose the Democrat 97%. → source
06Google Reserves the Right to Turn Gmail and Photos Into Ad Fuel [AI Applications & Industry]Google's privacy policy now has an exception: content shared through its Personal Intelligence features from Gmail, Drive or Photos can help personalize ads once those apps are connected to eligible services. Default users are unaffected, and disconnecting an app does not erase what Google already saved. → source
07Apollo's Chief Economist: No AI Payoff Outside Tech Yet [AI Applications & Industry]Apollo's chief economist Torsten Slok finds revenue per worker and profit margins rising for the Magnificent Seven but flat for the S&P's other 493 companies, with no measurable AI lift in productivity. The AI payoff story, he writes, will be decided in that other 493, which so far shows none. → source
08AI Assistants Move Into Your Text Messages [AI Applications & Industry]Rather than another app, a wave of assistants pitches itself as something you text like a friend: Instinct just raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation, Ask Proxy rents for $1 a day over SMS, and Wajo's Fo gets its own phone number, email and payment card. → source
09One Prompt Adds Four-Player Multiplayer to Willison's Browser Strategy Game [AI Applications & Industry]One request made Simon Willison's vibe-coded browser war game multiplayer: a four-player map where up to four humans join via share links and AI fills spare slots. Claude Opus 4.5 wrote the new Compass Rose level and reworked the WebSocket network code to match. → source
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