15.ai

15.ai is a non-commercial freeware artificial intelligence web application that generates natural emotive high-fidelity text-to-speech voices from an assortment of fictional characters from a variety of media sources. Developed by a pseudonymous MIT researcher under the name 15, the project uses a combination of audio synthesis algorithms, speech synthesis deep neural networks, and sentiment analysis models to generate and serve emotive character voices faster than real-time, particularly those with a very small amount of trainable data. Launched in early 2020, 15.ai began as a proof of concept of the democratization of voice acting and dubbing using technology. Its gratis and non-commercial nature (with the only stipulation being that the project be properly credited when used), ease of use, no user account registration requirement, and substantial improvements to current text-to-speech implementations have been lauded by users; however, some critics and voice actors have questioned the legality and ethicality of leaving such technology publicly available and readily accessible. Credited as the impetus behind the popularization of AI voice cloning (also known as audio deepfakes) in content creation and as the first publicly available AI vocal synthesis project to involve the use of existing popular fictional characters, 15.ai has had a significant impact on multiple Internet fandoms, most notably the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Team Fortress 2, and SpongeBob SquarePants fandoms. Furthermore, 15.ai has inspired the use of 4chan's Pony Preservation Project in other generative artificial intelligence projects. Several commercial alternatives have spawned with the rising popularity of 15.ai, leading to cases of misattribution and theft. In January 2022, it was discovered that Voiceverse NFT, a company that voice actor Troy Baker announced his partnership with, had plagiarized 15.ai's work as part of their platform. On September 8, 2022, 15.ai was temporarily taken down in preparation for an upcoming update, a year after its last stable release (v24.