Grammarly infuriated journalists, authors, and academics with its “Expert Review” feature, which impersonated writers — both dead and alive — without their permission.
In Grammar’s telling, the tool allows users to “take your writing to the next level” by making suggestions inspired by “leading professionals, authors, and subject-matter experts.”
The feature, which was only accessible beyond a free trial via the company’s $12-a-month Pro subscription, caused an explosively negative reaction.
“You rapacious information and identity thieves better get ready for me to go full McConaughey on you,” seethed tech journalist Kara Swisher, whose advice the feature claimed to offer. “Also, you suck.”
Now, Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Grammarly’s owner Superhuman, has announced that the company is “disabling” the offending feature “while we reimagine the feature to make it more useful for users, while giving experts real control over how they want to be represented — or not represented at all.”
“Over the past week, we received valid critical feedback from experts who are concerned that the agent misrepresented their voices,” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn. “This kind of scrutiny improves our products, and we take it seriously.”
“We hear the feedback and recognize we fell short on this,” he added. “I want to apologize and acknowledge that we’ll rethink our approach going forward.”
Whether the company’s decision will calm the public outcry remains to be seen.
The feature left much to be desired, highlighting persistent pain points plaguing large language model-based tools like it. Even when author and copy editor Benjamin Dreyer copy-pasted paragraphs of lorem ipsum, which is dummy placeholder text commonly used in graphic design, the feature offered him tips from writers including the venerable novelist Stephen King.
The company seemed to want it both ways — to benefit from the implication of an association with prominent writers while distancing itself in the fine print. A disclaimer spotted by Platformer‘s Casey Newton buried deep in the company’s documentation hedges that references from these experts “are for informational purposes only and do not indicate any affiliation with Grammarly or endorsement by those individuals or entities.”
Nonetheless, the company’s use of people’s names without their sign-off became a bitter flashpoint in the AI discourse. Even a virtual version of Newton himself was found handing out writing advice.
“I’ve long assumed that before too long, AI might take my job,” he wrote on Platformer. “I just assumed that someone would tell me when it happened.”
More on the feature: Grammarly Offering Manuscript Reviews by AI Versions of Recently Deceased Professors
The post Grammarly Is Pulling Down Its Explosively Controversial Feature That Impersonates Writers Without Their Permission appeared first on Futurism.
