Anthropic adds watermark to all Claude generated text and files, says humans cannot see it
Ever since AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude have become mainstream, there are concerns that the internet is getting full of AI slop – low
Ever since AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude have become mainstream, there are concerns that the internet is getting full of AI slop – low quality AI-generated content. And more often than not, it is tricky to actually identify if something was written by AI. Now, Anthropic is adding watermarks to everything Claude generates, and the company says that your eyes won’t be able to see it. Read Full Story You see, Anthropic recently updated its support page for marking AI-generated content. The company says that it is adding machine-readable marks to content generated by Claude models as it moves to comply with transparency requirements under Article 50 of the European Union's AI Act. That is, going forward, everything created by Claude – be it text or processed files – will have a mark that it was AI-generated. Invisible watermarks, metadata According to Anthropic, this will work in two ways. For text, a supported Claude model will embed an invisible watermark directly into the text itself. This watermark, the company says, will not be visible to you. But it will remain in place even if you copy and paste the text to a document, and may “persist through some editing.” Though the watermark does not change or impact the meaning or quality of Claude’s response.
When it comes to different file types, such as.svg,.png and.jpg, Claude will attach signed provenance metadata. The metadata follows the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, or C2PA, open standard, which records information about content provenance. Anthropic states that a signed metadata label can signal that a file was processed by Claude and can also show whether the file has been tampered with. This change sparked different reactions online. Some were not happy to see Claude add a watermark to everything, and even considered cancelling their subscriptions. One user wrote, “Still paying Anthropic? You might want to rethink that.” Some were planning to stop using Claude after this change. Another person claimed that this may be the worst decision the company has made. They replied, “I keep thinking Anthropic can't possibly top their last bad decision but here we are.” Many thought that it was a bad decision. Though some were happy to see this change, and took a dig at those who use AI a lot for content. One user commented, “This is really funny because the only ones getting upset are people who don't disclose they use AI” A few pointed out that users were angry because they were using AI without disclosure in many cases.
The BriefWire