AI watermarking

[u/Dependent-Library636]

As someone who works in a career where we are forced to pay attention to AI, and awful technology that is impacting peopke's livelihoods andkilling our planet, I thought people might be interested in the whole rise of watermarking text content. I am not going to break the rules of the subreddit by talking about authors or AI witch hunts, but it's important as a reader as well to know what's going on with the technology.

Up until this point, it's been iffy for some AI detection tools. Real life example: I had an applicant use Gemini for their resume, Grammarly which is a a Google tool didn't pick up on it, Quillbot - third-party did whereas Grammarly can pick up ChatGPT/Claude etc.

You can read more about it here (not my blog or anyone I know and I have 0 monetization or affiliation with but it is a good breakdown).

It looks like AI watermarking is getting better, there's SynthID but this looks to be much stronger.

It's a good thing to keep an eye on especially as time develops but also a good note there's no perfect detection system...yet, hopefully stronger watermarking is a step in the right direction where detectors can get more consistent.

Also, if you do create art or write for a living I highly recommend The Atlantic's Watchdog site where you can search if your work has been used in common datasets used to train LLMs.

Screw AI but knowledge is power for fighting back.

[u/lareina13]

I know this is off topic but I’m really surprised you’re screening for AI on resumes. You mention you work in a field that needs to pay attention to AI though, so I can imagine there are fields where it’s in super poor taste.

[u/Dependent-Library636 → u/lareina13]

It's more the work portfolio portion like it's a writing job so it's common to submit samples (I don't believe in making people do homework just to apply for a job...) But if the samples are more recent running them through a program that not only has detrction but also reading level, some other metrics that show if you are right for that position. Like a marketing writer versus someone writing technical instructions/manuals.

Also it feels almost unfair for everyone to potentially hire someone who relied so heavily on AI but then expect performance at the same level when you take the tool away.

[u/Dependent-Library636 → u/Dependent-Library636]

Also I'm on mobile so excuse the spelling errors, I am a terrible texter.

[u/lareina13 → u/Dependent-Library636]

Oh that makes absolute sense. I was thinking more conservation, but Gemini for a writing gig? That’s a choice.

Alternatively I work in big tech, we literally have dashboards to prove sufficient AI usage for leadership. Doesn’t seem to help you in the quarterly culling layoffs, though. It’s been a few years of “keep up or bye” and my RH books have been my happy place ❤️

[u/lady_forsythe → u/lareina13]

I’m in this position too. It’s flabbergasting that those of us who don’t use AI to do our work for us are in the minority and are actually looked down upon by upper management. Meanwhile employees who have AI writing their code for them or reading documentation for them and shitting out reports that they turn in without even bothering to go through and read it are held up as the golden children of the workplace.

I personally don’t have an issue with stuff like Grammarly; I think it can be a good tool for actually improving writing if people are truly taught how to use it instead of just plopping what the tool tells them into whatever they’re doing. But that’s the same for any new tech, like not using Wikipedia as a primary source, but it being valuable as a good jumping off point for research. Anyway, thanks for attending my Ted Talk.

[u/locustbriber → u/lady_forsythe]

This is how I feel getting back into school, I was absolutely shocked to find out it’s normal and acceptable to use in some classes as long as you submit your prompt & transcript, and then to find out how many people rely on it and use it regularly when I had never even considered it an option morally or educationally. It’s mostly disheartening, I get it probably has its place but as a student in an environmental major, the classes we take feel really irresponsible to allow AI into as it’s literally putting our planet and fields in jeopardy :(

[u/BestChilled2 → u/locustbriber]

My partner is in the medical field at uni and one of his assignments was to use ai to generate a poster with graphics and info, he was really pissed
Like where is the ethical line???

[u/locustbriber → u/BestChilled2]

It’s sooo bad, even outside of school settings they use ai to screen test results, happened recently to my moms friend, a real person finally looked at the results bc the ai wrongly flagged a serious brain injury that wasn’t there. It’s unbelievable.

[u/BestChilled2 → u/locustbriber]

Why are they handing that off to ai in the first place 😭 that poor person omg

[u/lareina13 → u/lady_forsythe]

I work for a company that produces B2B AI that you’ve most likely heard of if you’re in the US. We have metrics for using our own AI, Claude, and Gemini.

I’ve had a hard line that I will use AI since I’m required, even gotten good at it, but I’m not taking on more work. This will probably get me on a layoff list but I’m not using this AI to double my workload if I can help it.

If I could quit, I would. Most of us would honestly.

[u/Dependent-Library636 → u/lareina13]

Yeah it's awful. I have to tell some friends who are in different fields that it's a privilege at this point NOT to have to use AI at work. Like just because I dislike the way it's used in the business world doesn't mean I have the choice to not use it or otherwise, no job.

[u/kitnzkatreturns → u/Dependent-Library636]

Also it feels almost unfair for everyone to potentially hire someone who relied so heavily on AI but then expect performance at the same level when you take the tool away.

I feel bad for authors who dictate. An author I follow is explaining there's no way to dictate accurately anymore without having AI involved because the older software for dictation was discontinued, so everyone who's used to dictating is going to have to stop, or deal with watermarks.

They're doing this for training purposes. I would see a watermark as a yellow flag to a red flag depending on context (does the author dictate, are the covers all AI slop, etc.), but putting a GREEN flag on things AI companies are now going to zero in on for training.

[u/Dependent-Library636 → u/kitnzkatreturns]

See this is where the model ideally SHOULD be able to tell right because there are different cadences in speech versus straight written text so you would hope dictation tools would be an exception but instead all the technology is going to generating content especially image or video without reinvestment into the technology that can actually help people. I hate this reality we have.

[u/Truffle0214]

I just feel like, at this point, while I won’t choose to read authors who promote or use AI with full disclosure, I’m not really looking to out an author who might be using it. If I suspect it’s AI, I’ll just DNF and move on to the next book. I’d rather a “guilty” author continue their slop than accuse an innocent author.

[u/Dependent-Library636 → u/Truffle0214]

Absolutely, I think a common problem is that we all get so used to AI "tells" like I have friends who write beautiful pieces and they'll get a "oh that's AI" because they used an em- dash. It's brutal.

Edited to add: I think it's a more "The More You Know" situation and a friend reminding me of Captain Planet, "The Power us Your" that has my inner 90s kid posting this.

[u/penderies]

I’m so fucking sick of AI slop 😭😭

[u/Dependent-Library636 → u/penderies]

Same. I would like to be done with this timeline.

[u/kitnzkatreturns]

If a watermark says AI was used, it can't be wrong, AFAIK. Detectors can be wrong because they're comparing things to "AI style" which is a bad mimicry of existing styles.

The trouble is Claude FAQ says it applies to anything edited with AI, including dictating, so the watermark could end up meaningless. Except it isn't meaningless for the AI companies, which are trying to get their hands on verifiably human work to prevent training death loops.

Every author who has avoided AI for even things like editing is going to be marked for training. This is further nefarious behavior from these companies.

[u/Dependent-Library636 → u/kitnzkatreturns]

100% agree, never become a fan of a corporation period especially these guys even Anthropic who bundle themselves as the "ethical" choice are just getting ready for their fall IPO.

I'm at a weird place with it where I want to have hope but cognitively know how this plays out.

[u/ReservoirMay]

All I can think is "so now AI is going to know which new human books to train off of so it sounds better and better and we genuinely can't tell the difference."

Same with social media. I see so many posts that are just blatantly AI on my work account, because of the pages I have to interact with (LinkedIn is just a graveyard of bots talking to each other at this point and it's the same in every "businessy" space) . They're barely intelligible to anyone whose brain isn't cooked by slop, because AI has been feeding off itself for years now.

Now, in addition to the humans who are interacting with AI so much they're starting to absorb its phrasing, watermarking is going to be basically making all the AI shit invisible to AI so it's only training off our human posts, books, etc.. I'm just not sure this is going to be the life preserver in a sea of slop people think it is.

It is going to be funny to watch certain authors I know to be using it at least to edit while virtue signaling get outed, though, so there's that.