Anthropic Criticized For Adding Watermarks to Text that Claude Generates - or Processes (futurism.com)
- Reference: 0185010618
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/08/17/022215/anthropic-criticized-for-adding-watermarks-to-text-that-claude-generates---or-processes
- Source link: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/people-horrified-busted-anthropic-watermark
> Anthropic said it was implementing the watermark system in response to the European Union's landmark AI Act passed in 2024, which requires that AI companies mark content that's been generated or edited by their systems.
[3] TechCrunch notes that other companies including Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Synthesia have [4]committed to adhering to the EU's code. But "The news about Claude watermarking kicked off a firestorm on X," [5]reports Forbes , "with users panicking that AI-assisted writing will now bear a kind of permanent 'scarlet letter.'" ( Forbes wonders if media companies are normalizing AI "while at the same time stigmatizing the output.")
But there's another issue. Anthropic said the watermark indicates Claude processed text, [6] Business Insider points out , "not that it was necessarily the original author. The company said marks can remain after Claude proofreads, translates, summarizes, or otherwise edits content... a watermark shows that Claude processed text, not necessarily that it wrote it."
In the days since, "Dozens of people have posted on X since Monday that they had canceled their Claude subscriptions, citing the watermark."
> Vladislav Rajtmajer, a freelance developer in the Czech Republic, told Business Insider he canceled his Claude Max subscription on Tuesday, citing the watermark as the main reason. He said he uses AI for code reviews and translations, and worried an AI label on code shipped to clients could raise questions about authorship or trigger contract penalties... Richard Echols, an AI consultant in Georgia, also said he canceled his Claude Max subscription on Wednesday and that the watermark was a major factor in his decision. He said he uses Claude to create documentation for businesses and worried the mark could appear when he had written the underlying material himself and used the chatbot only for edits. "Even if you edit your own work that you wrote, they add the watermark anyway," Echols said...
>
> Anthropic isn't the only AI lab to use watermarks: Google uses its SynthID technology to watermark AI-generated content, and OpenAI uses SynthID for supported images and audio. Elon Musk's social media platform X also adds a "Made with AI" tag on content it determines to be AI-generated or manipulated.
Long-time Slashdot reader [7]kmleon (also a tech consultant and RPG researcher) [8]experienced another issue . He'd built some software using their own custom-built AI tool, only asking Claude to do some testing. "Little did I know that Claude would sometimes decide, since it was involved on the edges... to take credit for all of my work, claiming some parts were either '100%' or 'Co-Authored/Created' by Claude.Ai / Claude Code!"
> I'm sure the good folks at Anthropic will eventually tweak Claude enough to, hopefully, not make these mistakes in the future.... I only became aware of it today, because I recently setup scanners to catch Claude incorrectly watermarking any content it touches for various projects I'm working on. I found that it has (apparently as far back as Sonnet 4.6, but as recently as today, August 14th, 2026) sometimes been mistakenly over-zealous in taking credit for 100% creating or co-authoring docs, code, images, videos, etc. I've only, so far, found about a dozen instances spanning the past year, and most of them appear to have been injected in the last few weeks, so it is not a common issue (yet).
On the bright side? Maybe watermarks can help AI stop training on AI-generated text.
Although [9] Forbes also reports that Google " [10]announced on Friday that it will now let users remove the visible watermark from AI-generated images, videos and music created with several of its models."
[1] https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16266773-how-claude-marks-ai-generated-content
[2] https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/people-horrified-busted-anthropic-watermark
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/11/anthropic-says-it-will-watermark-text-generated-by-its-ai-models/
[4] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/strong-backing-code-practice-transparency-ai-generated-content
[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andymeek/2026/08/16/welcome-to-ais-scarlet-letter-era-as-watermarks-and-labels-multiply/
[6] https://www.businessinsider.com/claude-users-cancel-subscriptions-citing-anthropic-new-ai-watermark-2026-8
[7] https://www.slashdot.org/~kmleon
[8] https://techtalkhawke.com/news/claude-ai-watermarking-content-as-claude-created-even-though-human-or-other-ai-created
[9] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andymeek/2026/08/16/welcome-to-ais-scarlet-letter-era-as-watermarks-and-labels-multiply/
[10] https://x.com/joshwoodward/status/2088259242423968162
Anthropic : All your base belong to us (Score:2)
And you can bet on it that they will want you o pay up for it.
If only all people were honest (Score:2)
It's OK to use tools, but tool users should be honest about the tools they use.
Woodworkers have no problem with this. There is skill in using a tool like a wood lathe, and craftspeople proudly show their work.
The problem with AI is untalented people using the tool to defraud publishers.
I suspect that as the tool becomes more common, there will be an unmistakable difference between AI work made by a talented tool user and low effort slop.
"On the bright side" (Score:2)
> On the bright side? Maybe watermarks can help AI stop training on AI-generated text.
Oh, yes, terrific news. Wouldn't want to curtail the destruction of physical books as they get ripped up, scanned for LLM training, and discarded.
Re: (Score:2)
You understand
A) no actual rare or precious books have been proved to have been destroyed, right?
B) millions of books are destroyed every single day. Millions. And that processing has nothing to do with ai. It has been true for decades.
Your rage about this is either misinformed, or dishonest.
Either way, maybe think about that.
Breaking News (Score:2)
In a shocking new development AI bros discover writing styles and how they can be used to identify the author.
More at 11
Call it what it is: mass surveilence (Score:1)
It's interesting the technical community is either getting in line, or seems to be split on this issue, while everyone is all on board with condemning Flock. This is exactly the same as Flock, mass surveillance. Just like Flock, there is a demonstrable good reason for it, and just like Flock, its a new system to track everyone's movement everywhere they go, without their knowledge, without a warrant, without any due process, and it will be ripe for abuse, and will be abused. Can't we just skip to the end an
Re: (Score:3)
The incentive to use AI to generate content and then pass it off as human-generated content is very strong. Especially right now. There is real money in the ability to lie about this, and so people absolutely want to. Many won't admit it in these terms, but the incentives are objective realities and that's all anyone needs to know in order to predict human behavior in aggregate.
Further, this watermarking does not solve the problem. It just means that people who want to deceive will simply have to use di
Re: quiet part out loud (Score:1)
Watermark removal is available for almost no cost now. Google Translate and then back. Or just pop the text into Grammarly, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
> Watermark removal is available for almost no cost now. Google Translate and then back.
Depending on the language you choose, that's probably not going to work as well as you assume.
Random sample from the web:
Electric cars are the future in the auto industry. As climate change gets worse, governments are going to start
limiting the number of gasoline cars being built. The cost of gas will continue to rise, which will make it harder for
people to afford to run gas powered cars. As battery technology improves, electric cars will be able to travel
further on a charge and cost less to buy. Eventuall