Last week, Wired’s Miles Klee reported on Grammarly’s AI text editing feature, called “Expert Review” which uses the names of journalists and other literary figures in conjunction with revision advice for writers. These experts—including my Gizmodo colleague Raymond Wong—served as “inspiration,” according to Grammarly. Writers had not been consulted about their inclusion.
On Wednesday, the Expert Review feature was pulled. But on that same day, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Grammarly, alleging that the feature “misappropriated” the identities of the figures who ostensibly inspired it.
The class in the class action lawsuit currently only has one named member: investigative journalist Julia Angwin, although it name checks notable figures named by Grammarly such as Stephen King. According to the text of the filing, the suit “challenges Grammarly’s misappropriation of the names and identities of hundreds of journalists, authors, writers, and editors to earn profits for Grammarly and its owner, Superhuman.”
As noted in the lawsuit, California Civil Code § 3344(a)(1) reads as follows:
“Any person who knowingly uses another’s name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness, in any manner, on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of, products, merchandise, goods, or services, without that person’s prior consent, or, in the case of a minor, the prior consent of their parent or legal guardian, shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured as a result thereof.”
There’s no demand in the suit for a specific sum of money in damages, though it does say “the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million.”
Angwin spoke to Wired’s Klee for a story about the suit, and told him the feature wasn’t the sort of “anodyne” AI fluff she expected trying to sand down people’s writing, but instead was “kind of actively making it worse,” and added, “I was surprised at how bad it was.”
In his Wednesday LinkedIn post apologizing saying and the feature is temporarily disabled, CEO Shishir Mehrotra wrote that “the agent was designed to help users discover influential perspectives and scholarship relevant to their work, while also providing meaningful ways for experts to build deeper relationships with their fans.” He and his company “recognize we fell short on this,” he says.
The LinkedIn post is not about the class action suit. Gizmodo reached out to Grammarly for a comment on the suit, and will update if we hear back.
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