Confronting the CEO of the AI company that impersonated me
#Superhuman #Grammarly #Expert Review #AI cloning #class action lawsuit #Shishir Mehrotra #The Verge #Decoder
📌 Key Takeaways
- Superhuman (formerly Grammarly) launched an AI feature called Expert Review that cloned real journalists without permission.
- The Verge and other journalists discovered their names were used, leading to outrage and a class action lawsuit by Julia Angwin.
- Superhuman responded by offering an opt-out, then killing the feature entirely, with CEO Shishir Mehrotra apologizing.
- The incident sparked a tense interview on Decoder, highlighting disagreements over AI's extractive nature and ethical implications.
📖 Full Retelling
Today, I’m talking with Shishir Mehrotra, who is CEO of Superhuman — that’s the company formerly known as Grammarly , which is still its flagship product.
Shishir also used to be the chief product officer at YouTube, and he’s on the board of directors at Spotify. He’s a fascinating guy, and we actually scheduled this interview a month or so ago, thinking we’d talk about AI and what it’s doing to software, platforms, and creativity pretty broadly.
Verge subscribers, don’t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Decoder wherever you get your podcasts. Head here . Not a subscriber? You can sign up here .
Then things really took a turn. Back in August of last year, Grammarly shipped a feature called Expert Review, which allowed you to get writing suggestions from AI-cloned “experts,” and reporters at The Verge and other outlets discovered that those experts included us. It included me.
No one had ever asked permission to use our names this way, and a lot of reporters were outraged by this — the talented investigative journalist Julia Angwin was so upset she filed a class action lawsuit about it. Superhuman responded to this by first offering up an email-based opt out and then killing the feature entirely. Shishir apologized, and you’ll hear him apologize again.
Throughout all of this, I kept wondering if Shishir was still going to show up and record Decoder , because my questions about decision-making and AI and platforms suddenly seemed a lot harder than before. To his credit, he did, and he stuck it out. This conversation got tense at times, and it’s clear we disagree about how extractive AI feels for people. But I won’t stretch this out any longer.
Okay: Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman. Here we go.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Shishir Mehrotra, you’re the CEO of Superhuman. Welcome to Decoder .
Thanks for having me.
IR
🏷️ Themes
AI Ethics, Journalism Conflict
Entity Intersection Graph
No entity connections available yet for this article.
Original Source
Today, I’m talking with Shishir Mehrotra, who is CEO of Superhuman — that’s the company formerly known as Grammarly , which is still its flagship product.
Shishir also used to be the chief product officer at YouTube, and he’s on the board of directors at Spotify. He’s a fascinating guy, and we actually scheduled this interview a month or so ago, thinking we’d talk about AI and what it’s doing to software, platforms, and creativity pretty broadly.
Verge subscribers, don’t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Decoder wherever you get your podcasts. Head here . Not a subscriber? You can sign up here .
Then things really took a turn. Back in August of last year, Grammarly shipped a feature called Expert Review, which allowed you to get writing suggestions from AI-cloned “experts,” and reporters at The Verge and other outlets discovered that those experts included us. It included me.
No one had ever asked permission to use our names this way, and a lot of reporters were outraged by this — the talented investigative journalist Julia Angwin was so upset she filed a class action lawsuit about it. Superhuman responded to this by first offering up an email-based opt out and then killing the feature entirely. Shishir apologized, and you’ll hear him apologize again.
Throughout all of this, I kept wondering if Shishir was still going to show up and record Decoder , because my questions about decision-making and AI and platforms suddenly seemed a lot harder than before. To his credit, he did, and he stuck it out. This conversation got tense at times, and it’s clear we disagree about how extractive AI feels for people. But I won’t stretch this out any longer.
Okay: Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman. Here we go.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Shishir Mehrotra, you’re the CEO of Superhuman. Welcome to Decoder .
Thanks for having me.
IR
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