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15.ai was a free web application that used artificial intelligence to generate text-to-speech voices of fictional characters from popular media. The application allowed users to make characters from various media speak custom text with emotional inflections.

15.ai was conceived as a research project by a developer known as "15" during their undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was later implemented following the developer's successful exit from a startup venture. The name 15 is a reference to the creator's claim that a voice can be cloned with as little as 15 seconds of data.

15.ai is credited as the first example to popularize AI voice cloning (audio deepfakes) in memes and content creation. Initially launched in early 2020, the application went viral in 2021 on social media platforms like YouTube and Twitter, and quickly became popular among Internet fandoms, including the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Team Fortress 2, and SpongeBob SquarePants fandoms.

In January 2022, Voiceverse NFT sparked controversy when it was discovered that the company, which had partnered with voice actor Troy Baker, had misappropriated 15.ai's work for their own platform.

In September 2022, 15.ai was taken offline due to legal issues surrounding artificial intelligence and copyright. Various commercial alternatives to 15.ai appeared in the following years.

Features

The platform operated without requiring user registration or accounts. Users generated speech by inputting text and selecting a character voice, with optional parameters for emotional contextualizers and phonetic transcriptions. Each request produced three audio variations with distinct emotional deliveries.

Characters available on 15.ai included GLaDOS and Wheatley from Portal, characters from Team Fortress 2, Twilight Sparkle and other characters from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, SpongeBob, Sans from Undertale, the Tenth Doctor Who, and HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The deep learning model's nondeterministic properties produced variations in speech output, creating different intonations with each generation, similar to how voice actors produce different takes. 15.ai introduced the concept of "emotional contextualizers," which allowed users to specify the emotional tone of generated speech through guiding phrases. The emotional contextualizer functionality utilized DeepMoji, a sentiment analysis neural network developed at the MIT Media Lab.. Introduced in 2017, DeepMoji processed emoji embeddings from 1.2 billion Twitter posts (2013-2017) to analyze emotional content. Testing showed the system could identify emotional elements, including sarcasm, more accurately than human evaluators.

Reception

15.ai was mostly well received by critics, with much emphasis on the naturalness and emotion of the generated voices. Liana Ruppert of Game Informer described it as "simplistically brilliant" and José Villalobos of LaPS4 wrote that it "works as easy as it looks." Lauren Morton of Rock, Paper, Shotgun noted that "the amount of control that you can use to tweak how words and phrases are pronounced is pretty deep if you're willing to get into the nitty gritty of it." The platform's ability to replicate character voices convincingly emerged as a key strength, although some writers pointed out that certain voices worked better than others. Rionaldi Chandraseta of AI newsletter Towards Data Science stated that he thought a video using 15.ai's Team Fortress 2 voices used Cameo to pay for new voice lines by the original voice actors. Zack Zwiezen of Kotaku reported that " girlfriend was convinced it was a new voice line from GLaDOS' voice actor, Ellen McLain". Natalie Clayton of PC Gamer wrote that "SpongeBob SquarePants' shrill, nasally voice works shockingly well", but also noted that in attempting to replicate The Stanley Parable's narrator, "the algorithm simply can't capture Kevan Brighting's whimsically droll intonation."

15.ai also garnered interest overseas, particularly in East Asian countries. In Japan, Takayuki Furushima of Den Fami Nico Gamer highlighted the "smooth pronunciations" of the application and Yuki Kurosawa of AUTOMATON noted its "rich emotional expression"; both Japanese authors noted the lack of Japanese-language support. Chinese news outlet GamerSky called the app "interesting", but also criticized the character limit of the text and the lack of intonations. Machine learning professor Yongqiang Li wrote in his blog that he was surprised to see that the application was free.

Controversies

Voiceverse NFT scandal

On January 14, 2022, it was discovered that Voiceverse NFT, a company that video game and anime dub voice actor Troy Baker announced his partnership with, had misappropriated voice lines generated from 15.ai as part of their marketing campaign. Log files showed that Voiceverse had generated audio of characters from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic using 15.ai, pitched them up to make them sound unrecognizable from the original voices to market their own platform—in violation of 15.ai's terms of service. Voiceverse claimed that someone in their marketing team used the voice without properly crediting 15.ai, and in response, 15 tweeted "Go fuck yourself."

References

1. 遊戲, 遊戲角落 (2021-01-20). "這個AI語音可以模仿《傳送門》GLaDOS講出任何對白！連《Undertale》都可以學". United Daily News. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
2. ^ Yoshiyuki, Furushima (2021-01-18). "『Portal』のGLaDOSや『UNDERTALE』のサンズがテキストを読み上げてくれる。文章に込められた感情まで再現することを目指すサービス「15.ai」が話題に". Den Fami Nico Gamer. Archived from the original on 2021-01-18. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
3. ^ Kurosawa, Yuki (2021-01-19). "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". AUTOMATON. Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
4. ^ Ruppert, Liana (2021-01-18). "Make Portal's GLaDOS And Other Beloved Characters Say The Weirdest Things With This App". Game Informer. Archived from the original on 2021-01-18. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
5. ^ Clayton, Natalie (2021-01-19). "Make the cast of TF2 recite old memes with this AI text-to-speech tool". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 2021-01-19. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
6. ^ Morton, Lauren (2021-01-18). "Put words in game characters' mouths with this fascinating text to speech tool". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on 2021-01-18. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
7. ^ Chandraseta, Rionaldi (2021-01-21). "Generate Your Favourite Characters' Voice Lines using Machine Learning". Towards Data Science. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
8. ^ Squire, Esperanza (2024-12-11). "Researcher Behind 15.ai Reveals Development History of Influential Voice Platform". Business News Ledger. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
9. ^ "The past and future of 15.ai". Twitter.
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11. VK, Anirudh (2023-03-18). "Deepfakes Are Elevating Meme Culture, But At What Cost?". Analytics India Magazine. Retrieved 2024-12-18. While AI voice memes have been around in some form since '15.ai' launched in 2020, {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
12. Wright, Steven (2023-03-21). "Why Biden, Trump, and Obama Arguing Over Video Games Is YouTube's New Obsession". Inverse. Retrieved 2024-12-18. AI voice tools used to create "audio deepfakes" have existed for years in one form or another, with 15.ai being a notable example.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
13. Ng, Andrew (2020-04-01). "Voice Cloning for the Masses". DeepLearning.AI. Archived from the original on 2020-08-07. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
14. ^ Zwiezen, Zack (2021-01-18). "Website Lets You Make GLaDOS Say Whatever You Want". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2021-01-17. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
15. ^ "这个网站可用AI生成语音 让ACG角色"说"出你输入的文本". GamerSky. 2021-01-18. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
16. Chandraseta, Rionaldi (2021-01-21). "Generate Your Favourite Characters' Voice Lines using Machine Learning". Towards Data Science. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
17. ^ Williams, Demi (2022-01-18). "Voiceverse NFT admits to taking voice lines from non-commercial service". NME. Archived from the original on 2022-01-18. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
18. ^ Wright, Steve (2022-01-17). "Troy Baker-backed NFT company admits to using content without permission". Stevivor. Archived from the original on 2022-01-17. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
19. "15.AI: Everything You Need to Know & Best Alternatives". ElevenLabs. 2024-02-07. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
20. "Everything You Need to Know About 15.ai: The AI Voice Generator". Play.ht. 2024-09-12. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
21. ^ Phillips, Tom (2022-01-17). "Troy Baker-backed NFT firm admits using voice lines taken from another service without permission". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 2022-01-17. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
22. "An Algorithm Trained on Emoji Knows When You're Being Sarcastic on Twitter". MIT Technology Review. 2017-08-03. Archived from the original on 2022-06-02. Retrieved 2024-12-18.
23. ^ Villalobos, José (2021-01-18). "Descubre 15.AI, un sitio web en el que podrás hacer que GlaDOS diga lo que quieras". LaPS4. Archived from the original on 2021-01-18. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
24. "게임 캐릭터 음성으로 영어를 읽어주는 소프트 15.ai 공개". Tistory. 2021-01-20. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
25. Li, Yongqiang. "语音开源项目优选：免费配音网站15.ai". Zhihu. Retrieved 2024-12-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
26. Lopez, Ule (2022-01-16). "Voiceverse NFT Service Reportedly Uses Stolen Technology from 15ai [UPDATE]". Wccftech. Archived from the original on 2022-01-16. Retrieved 2022-06-07.
27. @fifteenai (January 14, 2022). "Go fuck yourself" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

Notes

1. Translated from original quote written in Spanish: "La dirección es 15.AI y funciona tan fácil como parece."

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