Grammarly's AI writing tips claim inspiration from experts who never agreed to participate

Grammarly is apparently using the names of journalists and authors without permission for an AI feature called "Expert Review." The feature offers writing tips that are supposedly "inspired" by experts like Stephen King or Neil deGrasse Tyson. Even people who have already died, such as Carl Sagan, are reportedly included. As The Verge, Platformer, and Wired report, the feature also lists numerous tech journalists, including Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel and other editors. None of them were reportedly asked beforehand.

After the backlash, Grammarly reportedly offered only an opt-out option via email - no apology. Alex Gay, vice president of product marketing at parent company Superhuman, said the feature never claimed direct involvement from the experts. According to The Verge, some of the feature's source links pointed to spam sites or completely unrelated content. Expert descriptions also contained outdated job titles. The AI suggestions show up in Google Docs looking like real user comments, which can easily mislead people.