[smoldesu]

I mean, 15.ai started as a 4chan project for /mlp/ users to generate voice lines from official voice actors now that Friendship is Magic is over (google Pony Preservation Project). Honestly, the more impressive part is that a bunch of nobodies on an imageboard leapfrogged the rest of the industry and made a now-famous voice transformer model.

In the greater sense, though? Ponies have always been this weird relic of internet absurdity and bear-baiting. Some people rep it ironically, other people are dead-serious, but the community has significant overlap with the STEM field. As a result, a lot of pony-related stuff would end up propagating into the tech world, much like this very project.