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Grammarly Is Offering 'Expert' AI Reviews From Your Favorite Authors--Dead or Alive (Wired. & Verge staff were also used)
Two articles here, from Wired and The Verge, both infuriating. I ran across the newer article first but will start with the older one it linked to.
From Wired, March 4:
https://www.wired.com/story/grammarly-is-offering-expert-ai-reviews-from-your-favorite-authors-dead-or-alive/
Miles Klee
Culture
Mar 4, 2026 5:56 PM
Grammarly Is Offering ‘Expert’ AI Reviews From Your Favorite Authors—Dead or Alive
The tool, offered by the recently-rebranded company Superhuman, gives feedback based on the work of famous dead and living writers—without their permission.
-snipping the first paragraph-
Once relied upon only to proofread for correct grammar and spelling, the writing tool Grammarly has added a host of generative AI features over the past several years. In October, CEO Shishir Mehrotra announced that the overall company was rebranding as Superhuman to reflect a new suite of AI-powered products. However, the AI writing “partner” remains called Grammarly. “When technology works everywhere, it starts to feel ordinary,” Mehrotra wrote in his press release. “And that usually means something extraordinary is happening under the hood.”
-snip-
As advertised on a support page, Grammarly users can solicit tips from virtual versions of living writers and scholars such as Stephen King and Neil deGrasse Tyson (neither of whom responded to a request for comment) as well as the deceased, like the editor William Zinsser and astronomer Carl Sagan. Presumably, these different AI agents are trained on the oeuvres of the people they are meant to imitate, though the legality of this content-harvesting remains murky at best, and the subject of many, many copyright lawsuits.
“Our Expert Review agent examines the writing a user is working on, whether it's a marketing brief or a student project on biodiversity, and leverages our underlying LLM to surface expert content that can help the document's author shape their work,” says Jen Dakin, senior communications manager at Superhuman. “The suggested experts depend on the substance of the writing being evaluated. The Expert Review agent doesn’t claim endorsement or direct participation from those experts; it provides suggestions inspired by works of experts and points users toward influential voices whose scholarship they can then explore more deeply.”
-snip-
“These are not expert reviews, because there are no ‘experts’ involved in producing them,” Aubin says. “And it's pretty insulting to see scholarship used this way when the academic humanities are currently under attack from every possible angle—as though the actual people who do the thinking and produce the scholarship are reducible to their work itself and can be removed entirely from the equation.” She says this elimination of personhood is “awful” enough on its own, apart from “the issue of ‘reanimating’ the dead so cynically.”
-snip-
Culture
Mar 4, 2026 5:56 PM
Grammarly Is Offering ‘Expert’ AI Reviews From Your Favorite Authors—Dead or Alive
The tool, offered by the recently-rebranded company Superhuman, gives feedback based on the work of famous dead and living writers—without their permission.
-snipping the first paragraph-
Once relied upon only to proofread for correct grammar and spelling, the writing tool Grammarly has added a host of generative AI features over the past several years. In October, CEO Shishir Mehrotra announced that the overall company was rebranding as Superhuman to reflect a new suite of AI-powered products. However, the AI writing “partner” remains called Grammarly. “When technology works everywhere, it starts to feel ordinary,” Mehrotra wrote in his press release. “And that usually means something extraordinary is happening under the hood.”
-snip-
As advertised on a support page, Grammarly users can solicit tips from virtual versions of living writers and scholars such as Stephen King and Neil deGrasse Tyson (neither of whom responded to a request for comment) as well as the deceased, like the editor William Zinsser and astronomer Carl Sagan. Presumably, these different AI agents are trained on the oeuvres of the people they are meant to imitate, though the legality of this content-harvesting remains murky at best, and the subject of many, many copyright lawsuits.
“Our Expert Review agent examines the writing a user is working on, whether it's a marketing brief or a student project on biodiversity, and leverages our underlying LLM to surface expert content that can help the document's author shape their work,” says Jen Dakin, senior communications manager at Superhuman. “The suggested experts depend on the substance of the writing being evaluated. The Expert Review agent doesn’t claim endorsement or direct participation from those experts; it provides suggestions inspired by works of experts and points users toward influential voices whose scholarship they can then explore more deeply.”
-snip-
“These are not expert reviews, because there are no ‘experts’ involved in producing them,” Aubin says. “And it's pretty insulting to see scholarship used this way when the academic humanities are currently under attack from every possible angle—as though the actual people who do the thinking and produce the scholarship are reducible to their work itself and can be removed entirely from the equation.” She says this elimination of personhood is “awful” enough on its own, apart from “the issue of ‘reanimating’ the dead so cynically.”
-snip-
From The Verge today:
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/890921/grammarly-ai-expert-reviews
-snip-
The AI-generated feedback included comments that appeared to be from The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, as well as editor-at-large David Pierce and senior editors Sean Hollister and Tom Warren, none of whom gave Grammarly permission to include them in the “expert reviews.”
-snip-
The Verge found numerous other tech journalists named in the feature, as well, including former Verge editors Casey Newton and Joanna Stern, former Verge writer Monica Chin, Wired’s Lauren Goode, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Jason Schreier, the New York Times’ Kashmir Hill, The Atlantic’s Kaitlyn Tiffany, PC Gamer’s Wes Fenlon, Gizmodo’s Raymond Wong, Digital Foundry founder Richard Leadbetter, Tom’s Guide editor-in-chief Mark Spoonauer, former Rock Paper Shotgun editor-in-chief Katharine Castle, and former IGN news director Kat Bailey. The descriptions for some experts contain inaccuracies, such as outdated job titles, which could have been accurately updated had Superhuman asked those people for permission to reference their work.
In a statement to The Verge, Alex Gay, vice president of product and corporate marketing at Grammarly parent company Superhuman, commented: “The Expert Review agent doesn’t claim endorsement or direct participation from those experts; it provides suggestions inspired by works of experts and points users toward influential voices whose scholarship they can then explore more deeply.”
When asked if Superhuman considered notifying the people named in its AI feature, or requesting their permission, Gay said, “The experts in Expert Review appear because their published works are publicly available and widely cited.”
-snip-
The AI-generated feedback included comments that appeared to be from The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, as well as editor-at-large David Pierce and senior editors Sean Hollister and Tom Warren, none of whom gave Grammarly permission to include them in the “expert reviews.”
-snip-
The Verge found numerous other tech journalists named in the feature, as well, including former Verge editors Casey Newton and Joanna Stern, former Verge writer Monica Chin, Wired’s Lauren Goode, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman and Jason Schreier, the New York Times’ Kashmir Hill, The Atlantic’s Kaitlyn Tiffany, PC Gamer’s Wes Fenlon, Gizmodo’s Raymond Wong, Digital Foundry founder Richard Leadbetter, Tom’s Guide editor-in-chief Mark Spoonauer, former Rock Paper Shotgun editor-in-chief Katharine Castle, and former IGN news director Kat Bailey. The descriptions for some experts contain inaccuracies, such as outdated job titles, which could have been accurately updated had Superhuman asked those people for permission to reference their work.
In a statement to The Verge, Alex Gay, vice president of product and corporate marketing at Grammarly parent company Superhuman, commented: “The Expert Review agent doesn’t claim endorsement or direct participation from those experts; it provides suggestions inspired by works of experts and points users toward influential voices whose scholarship they can then explore more deeply.”
When asked if Superhuman considered notifying the people named in its AI feature, or requesting their permission, Gay said, “The experts in Expert Review appear because their published works are publicly available and widely cited.”
-snip-
Both articles point out that Grammarly's AI widgets don't work very well.
And this is another AI company showing the complete lack of ethics that is typical of the generative AI industry.
7 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Ty for sharing.
