After criticism: Grammarly AI no longer poses as authors

Following massive criticism, Grammarly has deactivated an AI feature in its grammar checker that claimed to correct texts in the style of famous authors. This included German-speaking “experts,” as heise online discovered. The feature, named “Expert Revision,” is now to be “reimagined to make it more useful for users, while giving experts real control over how they want to be represented - or not represented at all,” the company explained to heise online in a statement.

The “Expert Revision” feature marked passages in texts, suggested improvements, and even directly rephrased passages upon request, all from the supposed perspective of experts in the field. In Grammarly's repertoire, alongside numerous English-speaking personalities, were former Zeit Online editor-in-chief Wolfgang Blau, the journalist Wolf Schneider who passed away in 2022, and the journalist Cordt Schnibben, as heise online found out.

Affected journalists from the USA report that they were not asked for permission by Superhuman. That is the name of the company offering Grammarly. Many only found out by chance that the AI was using their names. Superhuman did not respond to a press inquiry from heise online regarding whether the company had asked for permission from or informed the German-speaking experts.

Much criticism and a class-action lawsuit

In its statement, the company assures that it will “do better next time and be transparent about how we improve from here.” This decision was made “based on the feedback.” In the past few days, there has been a lot of criticism of the company and the “Expert-Review” feature, including from the supposed experts themselves. The feature itself was released in August of last year.

Furthermore, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Superhuman in the USA yesterday, Wednesday (US District Court Southern New York 1:26-CV-02005). Investigative journalist Julia Angwin, as plaintiff, accuses the company of misusing her identity and that of numerous other authors for profit.

The feature was behind a paywall

Although the “Expert-Review” AI was available with a simple free Grammarly account, if you wanted to see and directly insert phrasing suggestions, a Pro account was required after a few free demonstrations. The AI could be used for texts of at least 150 words in the AI-powered Grammarly Docs, which was released at the same time as the feature.

(mho)