Sometimes tech companies get ideas above their station. But when a glorified spellchecker rebrands itself “Superhuman,” you wonder if it might need to introduce a “you just jumped the shark” alert. That is exactly what has happened with Grammarly.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
However, just as Facebook the social media site is still known as Facebook, despite the fact that Facebook the company is now Meta, so people will still use Grammarly, although the service will now be provided by Superhuman. Are you following? Maybe I should find a tone checker to help me be less complicated.
Grammarly Becomes “Superhuman”
There will be a new Superhuman product, though—Superhuman Go. It is, because there aren’t enough of these already, an AI assistant. One of its features will be a plagiarism checker (anyone know if Grammarly has an irony-spotting feature?).
OpenAI Lawsuit Moves Forward
Also in the world of AI, there is a further legal development in the many-fronted battle between rights holders and AI platforms. This time the contention is copyright infringement, and the defendant is OpenAI. A ruling by a New York court has found that, in respect of a number of claims, the allegations can be taken forward together as a class action. The judge made it clear that this was not a ruling on the merits of the case (around fair use) but specifically on the question of how the case could proceed. Read more in Publishers Weekly.
And finally, to round out our tech roundup, it looks like the ink is finally about to settle on a deal to secure the future of TikTok in the United States. The final terms were due to be signed on Thursday of this week, having been agreed during wide-ranging talks between Presidents Trump and Xi earlier in the week. TechCrunch reports that this might finally bring to an end a long period of uncertainty, allowing many indie authors to unpress the pause button on plans to engage with readers through the BookTok phenomenon.
Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?
If you’re an ALLi member, head over to the SelfPubConnect forum for support from our experienced community of indie authors, advisors, and our own ALLi team. Simply create an account (if you haven’t already) to request to join the forum and get going.
Non-members looking for more information can search our extensive archive of blog posts and podcast episodes packed with tips and advice at ALLi's Self-Publishing Advice Center.
