Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 23, 2026

15 (software engineer)

15 is a software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher. He is best known for creating the text-to-speech website 15.ai, which is credited with popularizing AI voice cloning, and his subsequent role in the Voiceverse NFT plagiarism scandal, in which an NFT company called Voiceverse plagiarized 15.ai in an attempt to market their partnership with voice actor Troy Baker. The pseudonym 15 is a reference to his claim that 15 seconds of speech is sufficient to clone a voice up to human standards, which was later corroborated by OpenAI.

Last revised
Jun 23, 2026
Read time
≈ 3 min
Length
652 w
Citations
14
Source
Wikipedia ↗
15
Alma materMassachusetts Institute of Technology
OccupationsSoftware engineer, artificial intelligence researcher
Notable work15.ai, Artist Alley

15 is a software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher. He is best known for creating the text-to-speech website 15.ai,1 which is credited with popularizing AI voice cloning,23 and his subsequent role in the Voiceverse NFT plagiarism scandal, in which an NFT company called Voiceverse plagiarized 15.ai in an attempt to market their partnership with voice actor Troy Baker.4567 The pseudonym 15 is a reference to his claim that 15 seconds of speech is sufficient to clone a voice up to human standards, which was later corroborated by OpenAI.89

Education and career

15's ponysona is the mascot of the 15.ai website source ↗

15 attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he began developing voice AI technology as an undergraduate.1011 In 2019, his startup was accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator. Following his departure, he developed and launched 15.ai in March 2020.9

In January 2022, 15 revealed on X that the blockchain company Voiceverse had plagiarized from 15.ai and sold his work as an NFT. Within an hour of being confronted, Voiceverse confessed and stated that their marketing team had used 15.ai without proper attribution while rushing to create a technology demo to coincide with their partnership announcement with voice actor Troy Baker. In response, 15 replied "Go fuck yourself"; the interaction went viral and garnered a large amount of support for the developer.12

In May 2026, 15 announced the indefinite closure of 15.ai so that he could focus his attention on founding Artist Alley, a fandom marketplace catered toward artists.13

References

References

  1. Clayton, Natalie (January 19, 2021). "Make the cast of TF2 recite old memes with this AI text-to-speech tool". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
  2. Wright, Steven (March 21, 2023). "Why Biden, Trump, and Obama Arguing Over Video Games Is YouTube's New Obsession". Inverse. Archived from the original on December 20, 2024. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
  3. Weitzman, Cliff (November 19, 2023). "15.ai: All about 15.ai and the best alternative". Speechify. Archived from the original on December 25, 2024. Retrieved December 31, 2024.
  4. Williams, Demi (January 18, 2022). "Voiceverse NFT admits to taking voice lines from non-commercial service". NME. Archived from the original on January 18, 2022. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
  5. Phillips, Tom (January 17, 2022). "Troy Baker-backed NFT firm admits using voice lines taken from another service without permission". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on January 17, 2022. Retrieved December 31, 2024.
  6. Innes, Ruby (January 18, 2022). "Voiceverse Is The Latest NFT Company Caught Using Someone Else's Content". Kotaku Australia. Archived from the original on July 26, 2024. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
  7. Bailey, Jonathan (November 17, 2025). "A Retrospective on the Voiceverse Plagiarism Scandal". Plagiarism Today. Archived from the original on November 17, 2025. Retrieved November 20, 2025.
  8. Abisola, Shojobi (January 3, 2025). "The MIT Project That Paved Way For Modern Voice AI". Independent. Archived from the original on February 27, 2025. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
  9. Temitope, Yusuf (December 10, 2024). "15.ai Creator reveals journey from MIT Project to internet phenomenon". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 28, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
  10. Kurosawa, Yuki (2021). "ゲームキャラ音声読み上げソフト「15.ai」公開中。『Undertale』や『Portal』のキャラに好きなセリフを言ってもらえる" [Game Character Voice Reading Software "15.ai" Now Available. Get Characters from Undertale and Portal to Say Your Desired Lines]. AUTOMATON (in Japanese). Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
  11. Chandraseta, Rionaldi (January 21, 2021). "Generate Your Favourite Characters' Voice Lines using Machine Learning". Towards Data Science. Archived from the original on January 21, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
  12. Wright, Steve (January 17, 2022). "Troy Baker-backed NFT company admits to using content without permission". Stevivor. Archived from the original on January 17, 2022. Retrieved October 5, 2025.
  13. @fifteenai (May 28, 2026). "I should probably mention this now, by the way: I've decided to close http://15.dev indefinitely so I can focus on Artist Alley" (Tweet) – via X (formerly Twitter).