Grammarly’s identity theft

Grammarly is stealing the names of living scientists and science writers. It is using those names to sell “expert review” by generative AI, but without the input or even permission of the listed authors. And there isn’t an easy way to check if your name is being used this was. You more or less have to create a free account and poke around in it.

So far, Richard van Noorden has found in Grammarly’s system scientists and science writers like:

• Ivan Oransky
• Mary Roach
• Rebecca Skloot
• Ed Yong
• Melinda Wenner Moyer
• Deborah Blum
• Michael E. Mann
• Carl Zimmer
• Maryn McKenna
• Carl Bergstrom
• Elisabeth Bik
• Michael Eisen
• Anna Abalkina

To name a few that might be familiar. 

Ingrid Burrington coined what might be the Word of the Year for 2026 for these: “sloppelganger.”

Grammarly has said that you can opt out of being listed as an “Expert reviewer” by emailing: expertoptout@superhuman.com.

If you have an online body of work of any size, I highly recommend you use that email.  

Update: Well, that was short-lived. Surekha Davies is reporting that Grammarly is deactivating the “Expert review” feature tomorrow (12 March 2026).

But they aren’t saying “This was wrong and we should not do this,” no. It’s only gone “while we reimagine how to make it more useful for customers and more respectful of the experts whose work it surfaces.”

I suspect this might be corporate speak for, “We are totally putting this back as soon as the legal department tells us how we can avoid the lawsuits.”

External links

Grammarly will keep using authors’ identities without permission unless they opt out

Near miss

Only a little more than one year after the last time... The locker I was using at my fitness center was broken into. Again. The thing was padlocked, but the doors are actually pretty slim wood, so it's easy for someone to break the door in two – literally.

Luckily, brains occasionally do this wonderful thing called, “learning.” After I lost my wallet (with credit cards, green card, etc.) last year, I stopped putting it my locker. So fortunately, I lost nothing this time. Whew!

Ripe for the picking

Our building has had an amazing rash of thefts the last few weeks. We've lost about five or six computers and other equipment, including two last night. So far, I have been fortunate, but I've backed up the most recent stuff on my desktop computer just in case. I'm really worried. It's not the computer that concerns me, but losing data is a huge issue.

In other news, classes have started yesterday. I've tried to lighten my teaching load this semester (two classes) so I could get some more research done, but it's going to be an uphill battle. I will be supervising five students in research projects, and have many manuscripts and grant applications that need to be completed. My major concern is a repeat of the summertime issues with ordering supplies (as in, having only half of them actually show up).