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# OpenAI undecided on text watermarking release
- URL: https://www.techstories.co/openai-undecided-on-text-watermarking-release/
- Published: 2024-08-09T16:42:00.000Z
- Updated: 2024-08-10T16:47:05.000Z
- Description: Has been sitting on months on a highly accurate solution.
- Author: Paul Mah
- Tags: AI

OpenAI has created a highly accurate text watermarking solution. However, it's hesitating to release it.

OpenAI has confirmed the development of a text watermarking system that's 99.9% accurate, after an exposé by the Wall Street Journal.

Despite being ready for months, OpenAI is still of two minds about releasing it.

**Did you write it yourself?**

The technology works by adjusting how the model predicts the most likely words and phrases, creating a detectable pattern that OpenAI can validate.

What we know about it:

- Resistant to paraphrasing.
- Unnoticeable to humans
- Low false positive rate.

**Trivial to overcome**

The ability to detect AI-generated text could be a boon for teachers trying to identify AI-written assignments.

But despite being resistant to manual tempering, it is trivial to overcome with techniques such as:

- Using another LLM to reword it.
- Putting it through a translation system.
- Can be defeated using special instructions.

**Still debating**

OpenAI says it is "still debating" whether to release its text watermarking system due to several concerns.

- Stigmatise use of AI for non-native users.
- Can be trivial to overcome.

I think the key reason is probably more mundane: Users might switch to a rival LLM so they won't get caught using AI.

**Humans required**

A new study published two weeks ago once again concluded that AI models will eventually collapse and spew gibberish when trained recursively on AI-generated data.

That's likely why OpenAI continued developed its text watermarking solution after initially scrapping it, and indicates that AI firms have a vested interest in detecting AI-generated works.

On a happy note, this means that human-created content is still needed to train better AI models. So, we might all get to keep our jobs – for the time being.