Superhuman, the company behind the writing assistant Grammarly, is facing a class-action lawsuit over its artificial intelligence tool Expert Review, which offered editing suggestions as if they came from famous authors and scholars, including deceased ones.
Superhuman, the company behind the writing assistant Grammarly, is facing a class-action lawsuit over its artificial intelligence tool Expert Review, which offered editing suggestions as if they came from famous authors and scholars, including deceased ones.
The only known plaintiff in the lawsuit is journalist Julia Angwin. She was among a list of experts, including Stephen King, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and other prominent writers and scientists, whose names were suggested for edits in Expert Review, Wired reports.
The lawsuit does not specify the exact amount of compensation, but it states that the plaintiffs' damages exceed $5 million. The plaintiffs and Julia Angwin «challenge Grammarly’s unlawful use of the names and personal data of hundreds of journalists, authors, writers, and editors for the purpose of generating profit for Grammarly and its owner, Superhuman».
The complaint came after Superhuman had already decided to shut down Expert Review due to significant negative public feedback.
«After careful consideration, we have decided to disable the Expert Review feature as we reimagine it to make it more useful for users while giving experts real control over how they want to be represented — or not represented at all,» said Aileen Gan, Superhuman’s Director of Product Management.
Earlier, Verena Krebs, a professor of history at Ruhr University in Bochum, pointed out that Expert Review allows users to select historian David Abulafia as one of the available «experts» to check their work. Her post sparked a debate among scholars, as the scholar died in January of this year.
«We created the agent to help users tap into the knowledge of thought leaders and experts, and to give experts new ways to share their knowledge and reach new audiences. Judging by the feedback we received, we clearly missed the mark. We apologize and will do things differently going forward,» Gan noted.
Expert Review noted that none of the individuals cited supported or were directly involved in the development of the tool, which used a large language model. However, various writers, journalists, and academics have expressed frustration that Grammarly is using their likenesses and apparently replicating their life’s work with AI.
«I have worked for decades to hone my skills as a writer and editor, and it is deeply upsetting to me that a tech company is selling a counterfeit version of my hard-earned experience,» said Julia Angwin.
Meanwhile, Alex Gay, VP of Product and Corporate Marketing at Superhuman, explained that authors are mentioned in Expert Review «because their published work is publicly available and widely cited.» But after the backlash, Grammarly disabled the feature.
«Over the past week, we’ve received valid criticism from experts concerned that the agent misrepresented their opinions. This kind of scrutiny improves our products, and we take it seriously,» said Superhuman CEO Shishir Mehrotra.
