GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #963: THE PROOF IS IN THE WATERMARK

Just so we're on the same page.

 Speaking of AI, this lovely story was released before I took my writing vacation, but I didn't get around to it until now. It's pretty important because of AI's betrayal of its users (again, delicious schadenfreude), and it offers a look at the gross future of AI.

ATTN: AI "authors." If you wrote a book using AI, chances are, your text is covered with an invisible watermark.(They use it on images, too, so where did you get your book cover?) Google definitely does that, and if they do it, I'm sure the others do, too. Google's is called SynthID, and apologies for the giant quote block, but this is how it works:

SynthID-Text works by discreetly interfering in the generation process: It alters some of the words that a chatbot outputs to the user in a way that’s invisible to humans but clear to a SynthID detector. “Such modifications introduce a statistical signature into the generated text,” the researchers write in the paper. “During the watermark detection phase, the signature can be measured to determine whether the text was indeed generated by the watermarked LLM.”

The LLMs that power chatbots work by generating sentences word by word, looking at the context of what has come before to choose a likely next word. Essentially, SynthID-Text interferes by randomly assigning number scores to candidate words and having the LLM output words with higher scores. Later, a detector can take in a piece of text and calculate its overall score; watermarked text will have a higher score than non-watermarked text. The DeepMind team checked their system’s performance against other text watermarking tools that alter the generation process, and found that it did a better job of detecting watermarked text.

Why does the watermark exist? The article suggests a few reasons, and you can read it here if you wish. They claim to be doing God's work, helping the normies figure out if text was generated with AI or not. The tool isn't 100% accurate, but that's not my issue with this. Because if their mission statement with the watermark is true, then why isn't SynthID in the hands of said normies? The website certainly claims it is, but nope. I looked all over. There's no option for someone like me to use it. I even asked Gemini, and Gemini bullshitted me like Donald Trump in front of a crowd.

That's because its true purpose is to help Google figure out if something making a lot of money was generated by their tool or not. At this time, the law does not recognize a user's ownership of AI generated material. It can't be copyrighted. As such, if something created in such a manner is, indeed, a goose that lays golden eggs, anyone on the planet can copy and paste and start making money, and the original user has no recourse. The theme for these political times, I think, is taking well-known rules and erasing them legally. I'm sure Google will even be able to sue noncompliant AI authors. And what the hell? If a novel you published is selling really well, and it was made with Google Docs, why not squeeze you for a piece? Without their product, after all, you would have no product of your own.

Google is a convicted monopoly. Their punishment has yet to be announced, but considering how they just renamed the Gulf of Mexico in Google Maps, they might just get a slap on the wrist from the Trump Administration. But you don't get to be a monopoly without having not just skeletons in your closet, but also a Dahmer wonderland of culinary delights. Monopolies know all sorts of questionable shit, and I'm certain that Google has plans to eventually make it so that AI material *is* copyrightable (has Trump thanked them for the Gulf of America yet?), but only in Google's name. So AI authors would end up owing Google money instead.

AI is a corporate trap. There's a reason all these techbros are jerking off at the thought of an AI in every home. That reason is utter domination, not just of the market, but of the human race. Having all our money isn't enough for them. They want our immortal souls, too. And your first born. And your second. And your third . . .

PS: Even if you think you've avoided the AI craze, your devices might not have. I was surprised to discover that I had three of them on my laptop, even though I've had this machine longer than the AI craze has been in the public consciousness. I uninstalled them. You should do the same.