// 9TO5MAC — MOBILE & WEB
OpenAI details new text watermarking system for ChatGPT, Codex, and the API
OpenAI today announced how it will comply with the EU AI Act, which requires providers of generative AI systems to mark AI-generated text in a way that makes it identifiable. Here are the details.
A few months ago, Anthropic sparked controversy when it announced that, to comply with the EU AI Act, Claude would start watermarking text by slightly adjusting its word choice.
In a nutshell, every so often, Claude chooses between words that would work equally well based on a hidden pattern, which Anthropic says has no practical impact on the meaning, quality, or readability of its responses.
Anthropic also developed a detector that can look for that pattern in a piece of text, and can tell whether it likely came from Claude.
The detector can’t be used to determine whether text came from OpenAI or any other competitor, since Claude’s watermark is generated using a secret key specific to Anthropic’s system.
At the height of the controversy, Anthropic stressed that Claude would not be alone, noting that several other major AI providers were also implementing marking systems to comply with the EU’s requirements.
Today, OpenAI announced its own solution, which relies on a similar approach, albeit with a much more limited rollout and scope.
According to OpenAI, “API customers globally will be able to opt in to text watermarking for select models” starting today, while the company “will add an invisible watermark to eligible ChatGPT and Codex text output in the European Union” in the coming weeks.
This means that in the API, text watermarking will remain off by default for now, while in ChatGPT and Codex, it will initially be limited to eligible users only in the European Union.
OpenAI also opened applications for access to its text watermark detector, which will initially be limited to approved researchers and expert organizations as the company works to evaluate and improve the technology.