AI watermarks feel like they're approaching the problem from the wrong side - no matter what it will be possible to remove the watermark (Via manual rewriting, local LLLMs, etc). Instead it seems like we need "proof of human creation". And the only way I see that being possible is hardware-attested proof of keypresses. Which obviously has huge privacy implications, but how else would you actually know that a piece of content was produced by a human pressing keys on a keyboard? The proof would also need to include timestamps for the keypresses, so tell if someone is just copying from another window.
That sounds like an interesting idea, but I think there's always weird edge cases. Like what if I pressed the keys to write an essay that was actually generated by an LLM. It would be hardware-attested, but I just transcribed most of my sentences from an LLM and maybe I even introduce my own typos or sentences because I am half-assing the transcription.
> Like what if I pressed the keys to write an essay that was actually generated by an LLM. It would be hardware-attested, but I just transcribed most of my sentences from an LLM and maybe I even introduce my own typos or sentences because I am half-assing the transcription.
This is what's known as the "analogue loophole" and it's why DRM and the related "attest, strongly, at every link" schemes are ultimately destined to fail.
Lots of people suggesting we need some sort of cryptographic signature that is unique and unforgeable from every camera; it's the only way to _know_ that something wasn't generated with an LLM!
Just point the camera at a sufficiently high-resolution monitor...
You could do that, but a real human doesn't just type things out in one straight shot (modulo typos that are fixed "in-line"). There's going to be editing, pauses, copy-pasting, moving things around, etc. And at worst it puts a cap on how much text you can generate since at minimum it does need to be manually retyped.
