I first learned about the AI writing assistant Grammarly nearly a decade ago, when their YouTube ads suddenly sprang into ubiquity, clinging to my precious videos like a swarm of spotted lanternflies. At first this seemed innocuous, the high-pitched whine of a buzzy new startup that would soon fizzle into obscurity. Mostly I was confused by their gargantuan ad budget. I was not alone. But the ads…

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online […]

Grammarly disabled its Expert Review feature that generated AI feedback impersonating real writers and academics. Superhuman CEO Shishir Mehrotra announced the decision on March 11, 2026, stating the company will reassess the feature. The suspension addresses a class action lawsuit filed against Superhuman by living writers who discovered their names were used without permission. The […]