Why sue Grammarly

Julia Angwin is suing Grammarly. For NYT Opinion, Angwin explains the reasons and why we need better laws to protect ourselves from AI companies.

In this global crisis of consent, we must make use of the few anchors we have for enforcement. The right of publicity is one of them, but it needs to be strengthened into a federal law — not just a patchwork of state laws. In some states, it applies only to advertising; in others, to all types of commercial uses. In some, it covers only celebrities; in others, it applies to everyone.

Thus far, the proposed updates to the law have been too narrow. The No Fakes Act, introduced last year by a group of senators, including Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, would prohibit “A.I.-generated digital replicas” of people without their consent, but would not cover the use of people’s names in text-based services like Grammarly. The Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement (SAFE) Act, proposed by several senators, including Washington’s Maria Cantwell, would prohibit the use of people’s names without their consent — but only for student athletes.

And a new term coined by Ingrid Burrington came to light: sloppelgänger.