Grammarly's Expert Review feature uses AI to give feedback through the lens of noted writers and scholars—some of whom are no longer living.
Grammarly’s new AI feature that provides writing feedback from the purported perspective of noted “experts” is drawing criticism from academics who say the tool appears to “resurrect” scholars to review users’ work.
The feature, called Expert Review, analyzes text and generates feedback framed through the perspective of specific scholars, journalists, and other specialists. Many of the experts that the AI tool claims to mimic are no longer living—a feature that one medieval historian on BlueSky called “morbid.”
Grammarly introduced the Expert Review feature last summer. Through the Grammarly browser extension, users who opt into the Superhuman Go version can select an expert and receive AI-generated feedback based on that scholar’s field or published work.
The Expert Review agent, the spokesperson explained, doesn’t claim endorsement or direct participation from those experts, but provides “suggestions inspired by works of experts and points users toward influential voices whose scholarship they can then explore more deeply.”
While the feature aims to help students and professionals improve their writing abilities, Vanessa Heggie, professor of history at the University of Birmingham, questioned whether the “reviewers” gave their consent before the company used them in the app.
“I don't know where to start with this, but… Grammarly is now offering "expert review" of your work by living and dead academics,” Heggie wrote on LinkedIn. “Yes, dead ones—without anyone's explicit permission it's creating little LLMs based on their scraped work and using their names and reputations. Obscene.”
Grammarly is just one of the companies creating AI programs designed to mimic real people.In 2023, Meta released a line of chatbots for its Meta AI platform built around celebrity identities, including Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, Kendall Jenner, and Naomi Osaka. That same year, Khan Academy launched its AI tutor Khanmigo, which allows students to role-play conversations with historical figures, including British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. Civil War spy and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman.
Disclaimer: This article was prepared by an external contributor. The material is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before making any decisions.
