Grammarly is facing a class action lawsuit over its AI “Expert Review” feature

Superhuman technology The company behind writing software Grammarly is facing a class-action lawsuit over an artificial intelligence tool that presented editing suggestions as if they came from well-known authors and academics — none of whom agreed to have their names appear within the product.

Julia Angwin, an award-winning investigative journalist who founded The Markup, a nonprofit news organization covering the impact of technology on society, is the only plaintiff named in the lawsuit, which does not call for a specific amount in damages but says damages across the class of plaintiffs exceed $5 million. She was among several individuals, along with Stephen King and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who were introduced via Grammarly’s “Expert Review” tool as a kind of default editor for users.

The federal lawsuit, filed Wednesday afternoon in the Southern District of New York, states that Angwin, on behalf of herself and others similarly situated, “challenges Grammarly’s misappropriation of the names and identities of hundreds of journalists, authors, writers, and editors to gain profits for Grammarly and its owner, Superhuman.”

The complaint comes at a time when Superhuman has already decided to discontinue the feature amid public backlash. “After careful consideration, we decided to disable Expert Review as 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,” Ailian Gan, director of product management at Superhuman, said in a statement to WIRED shortly before the claim was filed. “We built Agent to help users leverage the insights of thought leaders and experts and give experts new ways to share their knowledge and reach new audiences. Based on the feedback we received, it’s clear we missed the mark. We’re sorry and we’ll do things differently going forward.”

As WIRED reported earlier this month, Superhuman last year added a suite of AI-powered tools to the platform, including one that allegedly features a veteran writer (living or dead) weighing in critiques of a user’s text. While the disclaimer made it clear that none of the people mentioned endorsed or were directly involved in the development of this tool, which leveraged the underlying Big Language Model, several writers, including WIRED journalists, expressed frustration with Grammarly conjuring up their own parallels and seemingly revamping their life’s work with these AI agents.

Angwin’s lawyer, Peter Romer Friedman, says long-standing laws in New York and California, where Superhuman is based, clearly prohibit commercial use of a person’s name and likeness without their permission. “Legally, we think it’s a pretty clear-cut case,” he told WIRED. “More broadly, one of the reasons we are bringing this case is because, you know, we can see what’s happening in our society: that a lot of professionals spend years, or in Julia’s case decades, honing a skill or a craft, and then see others appropriate their name or their skills without their consent.”

In an emailed statement, Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman, said the allegations in the lawsuit “are baseless and we will defend them vigorously. Regardless, there is a better approach to bringing experts to our platform and we are working on a version that will provide much greater benefit to both users and experts.”

As an opinion writer for The New York Times, Angwin has written extensively about how Silicon Valley giants are eroding privacy in the 21st century.

“Contrary to the apparent belief of some technology companies, it is illegal to appropriate people’s names and identities for commercial purposes, whether those people are famous or not,” the lawsuit said. “With this action, Ms. Angwin seeks to prevent Grammarly and its owner, Superhuman, from trading in her name and the names of hundreds of other journalists, authors, editors and even lawyers, and to prevent Grammarly from being credited with words they never uttered and advice they never gave.”