Reporter Julia Angwin has initiated a class-action lawsuit after discovering her inclusion in Grammarly’s ‘Expert Review’ AI editing feature.
Reporter Julia Angwin has initiated a class-action lawsuit after discovering her inclusion in Grammarly’s ‘Expert Review’ AI editing feature.
For several months, Grammarly has been utilizing the identities of actual individuals (including us) for its “Expert Review” AI recommendations without obtaining their consent, and it’s now facing legal action from one of the journalists included, as previously noted by Wired. The class-action lawsuit brought by reporter Julia Angwin on Wednesday claims that Superhuman infringed upon the “experts’” privacy and publicity rights by contravening laws against commercial use of someone’s identity without their authorization.
Angwin asserts that she became aware of her identity being used through the report by Casey Newton, who is also one of the experts that The Verge identified as being utilized by Grammarly when we examined the feature recently. Several current Verge staff members were similarly linked to Grammarly’s AI-generated recommendations, including editor-in-chief Nilay Patel.
Superhuman announced earlier on Wednesday that it’s deactivating the feature, after initially launching an email portal earlier this week allowing writers and scholars to request exclusion.
CEO Shishir Mehrotra states that “the agent was developed to assist users in discovering significant perspectives and research relevant to their tasks, while also creating valuable opportunities for experts to cultivate deeper connections with their audiences. We acknowledge the feedback and recognize that we did not meet expectations. I want to express my apologies and affirm that we will reassess our strategy moving forward.”
