4 ms·

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it simply drive people to use LLMs that are not watermarking their content?

ndr 2y ago
Agreed, that's the obvious prediction. They're also going to perform worse on 3p benchmarks right?
aleph_minus_one 2y ago
I think your idea is basically right, but there are two points to consider: - Your hypothesis only holds if the alternative LLM is also "sufficiently good". If Gemini does not stay competitive with other LLMs, Google's AI plans have a much more serious problem. - Your hypothesis assumes that many people will be capable of detecting the watermarks (both of Gemini and other LLMs) so that they can make a conscious choice for another LLM. But the idea behind good watermarking is that it is not that easy to detect.
kranner 2y ago
According to the article, you can just have another LLM summarise Gemini's watermarked output and that will "likely" defeat the watermark detection.
- scarmig 2y ago
  But, if all the good models can only be trained by large mega corps with close connections to the government, it's only a matter of time until that other LLM will just add its own watermark.
  - throwaway313373 2y ago
    You could probably use much smaller model for such rewriting
onion2k 2y ago
People use Google Search despite it being littered with adverts and tracking. Maybe Google are counting on either being better than the competition despite watermarking, or simply accepting that people who don't care are enough of a market that it's still worth adding.
beepbooptheory 2y ago
Why does the user care if its watermarked? Surely there are only some use cases for this stuff where it matters. Most of the time isn't it just people having ephemeral chats where this wouldn't matter?
- ajdlinux 2y ago
  Using LLMs to write your essays and reports for school or uni, in a way that could get you punished if caught, is a reasonably big use case.
  - highcountess 2y ago
    I see no scenario where there won’t be an LLM that is deliberately tailored for that purpose, possibly even built by an “intel” agency for the very purpose of having blackmail over someone that may become useful later in their career.
  - beepbooptheory 2y ago
    Agreed its probably a big use case in general, but like token per token I bet its relatively small! How many big papers do you have to write a semester? Even if its four, that's nothing compared to the everyday use you will make of it.
    - ajdlinux 2y ago
      Sure, but institutions and regulators care about this issue, and at least making some attempt to address it will make them slightly happier.
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  AIs and LLMs have an extremely uphill PR battle to fight right now. Anything that is deemed AI generated is assumed to be borderline trash (lots of exceptions, but you get the point). So, I can see that if someone uses LLM to generate text, they don’t want it to be marked as “low effort content”.
nicce 2y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but watermarking is only possible, if the model has a limited set of input you can provide (affects for the output) and a limited set of output it produces, and it should be completely deterministic. And you should pre-calculate all possible combinations. And this should be also the case for every possible LLMs; then you can compare which LLMs could produce which outputs based on what inputs. Then there is some certainty that this output is produced by this LLM and this another LLM might produce it as well with these inputs. So... impossible?
dartharva 2y ago
If Google locks in enterprise clients using Google Workspace to Gemini then they won't really have a choice. It is selling it as an "add-on" already: https://workspace.google.com/solutions/ai/#plan https://workspace.google.com/solutions/ai/#plan Suffice to say it is evident that no other LLM will come close in integration with Google Docs and other Workspace apps as Gemini.
glenstein 2y ago
People made this same argument about DRM escalations, about increasing privacy violations in the browser, and about Google's donations to support climate change misinformation. Even about Facebook interface redesigns. Every variation of "people will be driven to do X" I've ever heard assumes some coherence and unity of collective purpose that rarely matches the reality of how people behave. There are counter examples, e.g. Unity. But catching that lightning in a bottle is rare and merits special explanation rather than being assumed.
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  Using LLMs in exams and homeworks has a different driver. Getting caught results in punishment, so using alternative would be better. None of the aforementioned examples have a “stick” aspect to it when you stick to Google.

ndr 2y ago

Agreed, that's the obvious prediction. They're also going to perform worse on 3p benchmarks right?

I think your idea is basically right, but there are two points to consider: - Your hypothesis only holds if the alternative LLM is also "sufficiently good". If Gemini does not stay competitive with other LLMs, Google's AI plans have a much more serious problem. - Your hypothesis assumes that many people will be capable of detecting the watermarks (both of Gemini and other LLMs) so that they can make a conscious choice for another LLM. But the idea behind good watermarking is that it is not that easy to detect.

kranner 2y ago

According to the article, you can just have another LLM summarise Gemini's watermarked output and that will "likely" defeat the watermark detection.

scarmig 2y ago
But, if all the good models can only be trained by large mega corps with close connections to the government, it's only a matter of time until that other LLM will just add its own watermark.
- throwaway313373 2y ago
  You could probably use much smaller model for such rewriting

onion2k 2y ago

People use Google Search despite it being littered with adverts and tracking. Maybe Google are counting on either being better than the competition despite watermarking, or simply accepting that people who don't care are enough of a market that it's still worth adding.

beepbooptheory 2y ago

Why does the user care if its watermarked? Surely there are only some use cases for this stuff where it matters. Most of the time isn't it just people having ephemeral chats where this wouldn't matter?

ajdlinux 2y ago
Using LLMs to write your essays and reports for school or uni, in a way that could get you punished if caught, is a reasonably big use case.
- highcountess 2y ago
  I see no scenario where there won’t be an LLM that is deliberately tailored for that purpose, possibly even built by an “intel” agency for the very purpose of having blackmail over someone that may become useful later in their career.
- beepbooptheory 2y ago
  Agreed its probably a big use case in general, but like token per token I bet its relatively small! How many big papers do you have to write a semester? Even if its four, that's nothing compared to the everyday use you will make of it.
  - ajdlinux 2y ago
    Sure, but institutions and regulators care about this issue, and at least making some attempt to address it will make them slightly happier.
tokioyoyo 2y ago
AIs and LLMs have an extremely uphill PR battle to fight right now. Anything that is deemed AI generated is assumed to be borderline trash (lots of exceptions, but you get the point). So, I can see that if someone uses LLM to generate text, they don’t want it to be marked as “low effort content”.

nicce 2y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but watermarking is only possible, if the model has a limited set of input you can provide (affects for the output) and a limited set of output it produces, and it should be completely deterministic. And you should pre-calculate all possible combinations. And this should be also the case for every possible LLMs; then you can compare which LLMs could produce which outputs based on what inputs. Then there is some certainty that this output is produced by this LLM and this another LLM might produce it as well with these inputs. So... impossible?

dartharva 2y ago

If Google locks in enterprise clients using Google Workspace to Gemini then they won't really have a choice. It is selling it as an "add-on" already: https://workspace.google.com/solutions/ai/#plan https://workspace.google.com/solutions/ai/#plan Suffice to say it is evident that no other LLM will come close in integration with Google Docs and other Workspace apps as Gemini.

glenstein 2y ago

People made this same argument about DRM escalations, about increasing privacy violations in the browser, and about Google's donations to support climate change misinformation. Even about Facebook interface redesigns. Every variation of "people will be driven to do X" I've ever heard assumes some coherence and unity of collective purpose that rarely matches the reality of how people behave. There are counter examples, e.g. Unity. But catching that lightning in a bottle is rare and merits special explanation rather than being assumed.

tokioyoyo 2y ago
Using LLMs in exams and homeworks has a different driver. Getting caught results in punishment, so using alternative would be better. None of the aforementioned examples have a “stick” aspect to it when you stick to Google.