Grammarly, a subscription-based writing assistant owned by the company Superhuman, has disabled an AI feature called “expert review” after widespread criticism from writers, academics, and journalists whose names and likenesses were used without their consent.
The feature, which launched in August, presented users with AI-generated writing suggestions attributed to real people, including living authors like Stephen King and Neil deGrasse Tyson, deceased figures like Carl Sagan and editor William Zinsser, and hundreds of journalists and academics. A disclaimer buried in a support page stated that the named experts had no actual affiliation with Grammarly and had not endorsed the product.
No one whose name was used was asked for permission or compensated. Platformer journalist Casey Newton, whose name appeared in the feature, called it “a deliberate choice to monetize the identities of real people without involving them.” Kara Swisher, also listed without consent, said the company were “rapacious information and identity thieves.”
Scholar Vanessa Heggie described the feature as “obscene,” particularly after it included an AI agent modeled on a historian who had recently died.
Superhuman CEO Shishir Mehrotra apologized publicly. The company initially launched an opt-out email address, then decided to disable the feature entirely.
“We clearly missed the mark,” said Ailian Gan, Superhuman’s director of product management. “We are sorry and will do things differently going forward.”
Sources: Platformer, Wired, The Verge
