evacideMar 11

I know that bad news is coming when a co-worker messages me with "You're gonna be so mad..."

Grammarly has rolled out an AI-powered "expert review" feature where its simulacrum of me makes suggestions for your text. My real edits are usually along the lines of "Throw this into the sea."

Show threadJosh 
@evacide how is this legal? Everything else aside, they’re literally impersonating people and falsely attributing statements to them. This seems like it’s pretty clearly defamation.
Mar 11 at 12:14amWeb
Show threadThe Drop Bear 2.0 Mar 11
@josh0 it feels like ‘inspired by’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here 😬@evacide
Show threadShanie MyrsTearMar 11
@dropbear @josh0 @evacide It should be inspiring lawyers to win some stupid prizes.
Show threadJosh Mar 11
@shanie @dropbear @evacide has there ever been a class action defamation suit before?
Show threadneoludditeMar 11
@josh0 @shanie @dropbear @evacide Not defamation, but it seems like a pretty clear violation of Eva's moral rights. Whether it's enough for legal action in the US though is a different question (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights)
Moral rights - Wikipedia

Show threadJosh Mar 11

@neoluddite @shanie @dropbear @evacide they’re publicly making false statements about people with sufficient reputation that you’d want their editing advice, but giving advice those people not only didn’t make but possibly disagree with and is possibly simply wrong. There is a strong claim that this therefore damages their reputations, which seems like a pretty clear-cut case of defamation to me.

Defamation is only a crime in certain US states, but this occurred in all of the states plus many other countries where defamation is a crime.

Show threadneoludditeMar 11
@josh0 read the original post more carefully. It's not a false statement to say that a response is "inspired by Bruce Schneier", so you're into moral rights, IP, trademarks, etc. For example, I doubt they'd do an "inspired by Taylor Swift", because she'd sue them into oblivion for infringing her trademarks: https://www.wipo.int/en/web/wipo-magazine/articles/taylor-swift-trademark-strategy-a-model-for-artist-ip-protection-78728
Taylor Swift trademark strategy: a model for artist IP protection

From The Life of a Showgirl to cat names: Learn how Taylor Swift's 400+ trademark filings and sweeping IP strategy offer lessons for artists worldwide.

Show threadJosh Mar 11
@neoluddite ah, I see what you’re saying now. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, though, because ‘inspired’ seems like it’s still a false statement. Are LLMs capable of being inspired? I would argue that they are not, and so the use of the word is just a blatant attempt to avoid liability for what is actually a clear attempt to borrow the legitimacy of a subject matter expert to cover something they did not and would not say. This is very different from hiring an impersonator, and litigating it will require finely parsing the legal (and probably technical) difference between human creativity and machine learning.
Show threadneoludditeMar 11

@josh0 none of which really matters. The Grammarly legal team will already have been over the obvious stuff, eg. an LLM may not be able to be inspired, but the company and people that created it can be. Similarly for human creativity vs. a machine, it's not relevant.

What matters is what specific rights have been violated, whether you can prove that in court and how deep your pockets are when bringing a civil suit. Unless there's a trademark involved, you're getting into things like "unfair competition" and the authors right to publicity and it all seems pretty hazy (see https://cyber.harvard.edu/property/library/moralprimer.html and https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1f496bd5-24bb-409c-9043-39a3ed0b4a71)

Moral Rights Basics

Show threaddragonfrogMar 11
@josh0 @neoluddite LLMs can't be "inspired" but they can be trained on a particular person's writings and speeches without that person's consent (or theoretically with their consent but this is AI bro country so obviously without).