Fulcrum Echo promises AI text in the style of any writer, so I tested it
I am just a copy of a copy of a copy, everything I say has come before
Fulcrum, an AI startup established in 2025, is grappling with its new identity as it develops a technology that enables anyone to mimic another person's writing style. The company, now operating under the name fulcrum.inc, shares a name with other companies like Fulcrum (fulcrumresearch.ai), Fulcrum AI (fulcrumai.us), and Fulcrum Digital (fulcrumdigital.com), which could lead to confusion.
At the heart of Fulcrum's offering is a large language model called Echo, which can generate text in the style of any renowned author. The company suggests using Echo for various writing tasks, from literary fiction to casual conversations, allowing users to choose the desired style. Echo's Playground suggestions include generating text in the style of notable figures such as Paul Christiano, Emily Dickinson, and Donald Trump.
The company does not delve into the ethical implications of imitating someone's writing style. For testing Echo's capabilities, the author fed the model a recent op-ed and received a mixed response, though better than generic AI-generated pitches. When asked about the possibility of AI consciousness, the model's response in the author's writing style highlighted philosophical debates and commercial interests.
The author noted that Echo's output is familiar but contains awkward choices, such as starting sentences with "I suspect" and using convoluted expressions. The author also pointed out that Echo captured some skepticism about Meta's AI, suggesting that such chatbots could be a valuable audience for businesses. Echo's performance is an improvement over many AI models, but the author questions whether the benefits of this technology outweigh the potential harms, especially considering ongoing litigation over visual style imitation and voice imitation concerns.
Written by urgent.news from The Register Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
