TL;DR:
TECH CRUNCH:
Grammarly released a controversial feature […] that uses AI to simulate editorial feedback, making it seem like you’re getting a critique from novelist Stephen King, the late scientist Carl Sagan, or tech journalist Kara Swisher. But Grammarly did not get permission from the hundreds of experts it included in this feature, called “Expert Review,” to use their names.One of the affected writers, journalist Julia Angwin, has filed a class action lawsuit against Superhuman, the parent company that owns Grammarly, arguing that the company violated the privacy and publicity rights of her and the other writers it impersonated. A class action lawsuit allows writers to join Angwin in her case.
In a statement to The Atlantic, Mr. Mehrotra [the Chief Executive of Superhuman, Grammarly’s parent company] said that the company “believes the legal claims are without merit and will strongly defend against them.”
WIRED:
Archive link: https://archive.ph/hFdhZ
NYT: Why I’m Suing Grammarly | JULIA ANGWIN
Archive: https://archive.ph/FcYNg
JULIA ANGWIN IS A RESPECTED PRIVACY ADVOCATE
For those who don’t know Julia Angwin is an award-winning investigative journalist who has reported extensively about tech, and even published books about privacy. She wrote Dragnet Nation: A quest for privacy, security, and freedom in a world of relentless surveillance (2014), and co-authored The End of Trust (2018), a collection of essays and interviews focusing on issues related to technology, privacy, and surveillance. It’s available for free on the EFF’s website.
GRAMMARLY IS USURPING THE NAME OF ESTABLISHED WRITERS
I personally think this lawsuit is fantastic news, and I hope Grammarly and other AI companies get sued to oblivion. This story highlights an issue I have voiced before, which is the immorality, not to mention illegality, of AI companies training their models on the works of living and dead writers without asking for permission and profiting from it without any compensation. This is exactly what is happening.
What I find particularly interesting with this lawsuit is that it is using the right of publicity as the basis for its case because Grammarly used prominent writers names to advertise their new feature. However, what I was worried about was Grammarly being able to use the style of other writers without necessarily using their names. Because, IMO, even if they don’t use their names and their style is being copied, it’s wrong. I could also see users using prompts asking to imitate the style of specific writers, which, IMO, should still serve as grounds for a legitimate lawsuit.
That being said, one of the other reasons Julia and other writers are appalled by this is that Grammarly doesn’t even write like them. It makes gross ethical mistakes that they would never make, and these writers believe that could ruin their reputation. Although it is unclear if they are part of the lawsuit, some of the most prominent writers whose names Grammarly used are Stephen King and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I really hope they join this fight, because big names attract headlines and can garner popular support.
CAN COPYRIGHT LAW PROTECT US FROM THE ABUSES OF AI?
In her op-ed, Julia mentions that Denmark has proposed an amendment to its copyright law that would allow people to copyright their bodies, facial features, and voices to protect against A.I. deepfakes. However, she thinks this type of law has limitations:
The problem with all these proposed fixes, even Denmark’s, is that they rest on two flawed underlying assumptions. First, that the A.I. content would be a visual replica, and second, that it would be so good that it would be hard to distinguish from the real thing. Grammarly had done the opposite. It hadn’t created a visual replica of me. And its editing suggestions were so bad that they could destroy my reputation. […] What Grammarly made wasn’t a doppelgänger. As the writer Ingrid Burrington wrote on Bluesky, it was a sloppelgänger — A.I. slop masquerading as a person.
I haven’t looked into the details of Denmark’s proposed amendment, but I wonder if it would be a good thing if, instead of having to file to copyright your likeness, everybody had by default the exclusive copyright to their likeness.
In a recent interview with Timothée Chalamet hosted by CNN and Variety, Matthew McConaughey admits to embracing AI. He has trademarked his voice and image, which is fair, but he is also an investor in ElevenLabs, a company that creates AI-generated versions of voices, including his own, with his consent.
To me, the way he is embracing AI seems to partially come from a place of if you can’t beat them, join them, and I find that alarming and defeatist.
I recommend you read Julia’s own words for why she is suing Grammarly in her New York Times article that I linked above. However to me, the most powerful quote is the following:
I guess it’s no surprise that Superhuman believed it could, in my opinion, break the law. We live in a world where A.I. companies are grabbing every bit of writing, art and music without consent. Where our president is launching wars without the consent of Congress that our Constitution requires. Where Jeffrey Epstein spent years coercing girls too young to provide consent into sexual relations. In this global crisis of consent, we must grab hold of the few anchors we have for enforcement.
Angwin is 100% right. There is a global crisis of consent. In my opinion, it is completely warranted to compare the consent for privacy to other forms of consent, including sexual consent, partly because it seems to be the only way the message begins to register with some people.