3 arguments for and against AI watermarks

Anthropic is watermarking AI-generated text.

The news divided techies.

OJO Images/Getty Images Anthropic's invisible Claude watermarks are dividing tech over transparency and privacy concerns.

Supporters say watermarks could expose undisclosed AI use and curb AI training on AI slop.

Watermark critics say the tech can flag lightly edited human work and create compliance risks.

Anthropic's move to place invisible watermarks within Claude - generated text is dividing the tech community.

Claude models launched on or after August 2 will have an "imperceptible watermark" embedded in their text output, and Anthropic says it also plans to add support for older models.

The AI lab says the mark travels with copied-and-pasted text and that it plans to release a detection tool soon.

That has set off a broader debate : Should people be able to tell when AI was used, or should users be able to work with AI without leaving a permanent mark? Here are three arguments for and against it.

For: Watermarks mean greater transparency From social media posts to job applications to schoolwork, it's hard to know for sure what's AI-generated versus human-made.

Supporters say readers deserve to know when the words they are reading were generated by a chatbot.

Aadit Sheth, the cofounder of executive communications firm The Narrative Company, said in an X post that people should be able to tell whether a piece of writing reflects someone's own thinking.

"When you use AI, you know yourself that you are not being true to yourself," Sheth wrote.

"It's another system speaking." Against: The tech isn't perfect and could expose people in high-stakes settings Anthropic is also quick to warn that its watermarking text has limits, saying it can only determine that Claude was "likely involved with the content at some point." One concern is that nuance could be lost, and people will just assume any text that tests positive for the watermark was fully generated with AI.