15 (programmer)

15 is an artificial intelligence researcher and programmer best known for creating the text-to-speech web application 15.ai. In the early 2020s, they gained international media coverage for developing accessible audio deepfake technology and popularizing AI voice cloning in memes and content creation. The pseudonym 15 refers to their statement that 15 seconds of speech is enough to sufficiently clone a voice up to human standards.

15
15's ponysona
Born	1997 or 1998 (age 26–27)
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS, MS)
Occupation(s)	Artificial intelligence researcher, programmer
Years active	2020–present
Known for	Popularizing AI voice cloning
Notable work	15.ai and 15.dev

Education and career

As a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 15 began developing deep learning speech synthesis technology in 2016 as part of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, where they demonstrated the ability to replicate advanced speech synthesis results with minimal training data.^[1][2] After graduating from MIT, 15 planned to pursue a PhD but opted to work in the tech industry instead after their startup was accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator in 2019.^[3] 15 returned to research in early 2020, and using the high-quality My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic voice dataset from the Pony Preservation Project (a collaborative project on /mlp/), began developing their research as a web application.^[4] In March 2020, they launched 15.ai,^[5] which received widespread international attention in 2021.^[6][7][8][9] The pseudonym 15 is a reference to their statement that a voice can be convincingly cloned with as little as 15 seconds of data.^[2][3][5]

15.ai is funded by 15's previous startup earnings. At its peak, 15.ai incurred operational costs of US$12,000 per month.^[5][3] While they accept donations via Patreon,^[9] 15 later wrote that opening a Patreon account (at the urging of users who wished to contribute financially) was "a huge mistake" because it led to some believing that the project was a rug pull.^[10] According to 15, they "never wanted to make money off [15.ai]" and did not want a Patreon account to begin with.^[11] Despite receiving multiple acquisition offers, the website has remained independent and free of charge to use.^[4][5][3]

On December 13, 2021, 15 announced that they had "no interest in incorporating NFTs into any aspect of [their] work."^[12][13] In January 2022, 15 discovered through log files that Voiceverse had used voice lines generated from 15.ai to create and sell an NFT without permission or attribution.^[12][14][15] 15 publicly confronted Voiceverse on Twitter, ultimately responding with "Go fuck yourself" after Voiceverse confessed to the theft.^{[16][12][17][18]} 15's response went viral and amassed hundreds of thousands of retweets and likes in support.^[3]

In May 2025, 15 launched 15.dev as a successor to 15.ai.^[19]

Recognition and influence

Google DeepMind senior research scientist Alex Irpan wrote that when 15.ai launched in 2020, it was "arguably the highest quality voice generation model in the world" and superior to models developed by Google AI.^[4] Economist Tyler Cowen cited 15 as an example of underrated talent in AI and machine learning in 2022.^[20] In 2023, Cliff Weitzman (founder and CEO of Speechify) credited 15.ai with "making AI voice cloning popular for content creation by being the first [...] to feature popular existing characters from fandoms",^[21] and in 2024, Mati Staniszewski (co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs) acknowledged that 15.ai "transformed how users created different voices with AI".^[22]

Personal life

15 is an active member of the brony fandom and has been described as "horse famous" (i.e. a celebrity within the brony community).^[4] In January 2022, 15 donated $3,500 to TrotCon.^[23][24] In April 2025, 15 helped fund Pinkaboo's Neighhem, a brony music concert that was held immediately after BABSCon.^[4][25]