Grammarly’s Expert Review debacle
I’ve never used Grammarly, in large part because it seemed largely a way to police wordcount progress (that’s extra stress I don’t need) and, more recently, was too close to AI (which I don’t want to be a part of my novel-writing process). The recent scandal around their Expert Review AI agent validates my feelings.
Grammarly launched Expert Review last August, with the AI agent “designed to help users discover influential perspectives and scholarship relevant to their work,” according to Shishir Mehrotra, the CEO of Superhuman, which operates Grammarly. However, in an announcement on LinkedIn this month, he said they have disabled the feature while they reimagine it “to make it more useful for users, while giving experts real control over how they want to be represented — or not represented at all.”
That last bit is a soft acknowledgment of what they’d done wrong with Expert Review. Ann Handley, the author of Everybody Writes, casts a bright light on their mistakes:
I couldn’t agree more with Ann Handley’s comment. Not to be overly dramatic, but things like Expert Review are exactly why so many creators, artists, and writers see AI as a threat—not just to their livelihoods and reputations, but to their passions. AI can be used responsibly. All technology providers—but especially those who want to be seen as allies to creatives—have to try harder.
Related posts:
Where to draw the line with genAI
The Age of De-Skilling: Who do you want to be?
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