Grammarly makes it 0-for-3

“Hey Grammarly, write a LinkedIn post inspired by [your name here]”

This was Grammarly’s new ‘expert review’ feature. It didn’t go well.

Grammarly faced explosive backlash from writers including Kara Swisher, who called them “rapacious information and identity thieves.” They pulled the feature and the CEO apologized.

Persona-based writing feedback isn’t new. You can already ask ChatGPT for feedback in the style of Seth Godin, Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway. Grammarly’s mistake was turning people into a product feature.

It’s easy to laugh at Grammarly, and lots of people are! But they weren’t the first to learn this lesson. OpenAI’s Scarlett Johansson-like voice and Sora’s celebrity likeness videos also drew public backlash and legal threats.

While copyright law and AI training are still being debated, AI companies are now 0-for-3 against using someone’s name, voice or likeness without permission.

Platformer’s Casey Newton quipped: “I’ve long assumed that before too long, AI might take my job. I just assumed that someone would tell me when it happened.”

People don’t like AIs training on their work.
But they 𝗹𝗼𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲 being impersonated.