I'm not convinced spymark is better than just "invisible watermarks", spymark to my ears sounds designed to be sound very negative when invisible watermarks are not always negative, e.g. the counterfeit bank note example.

Tech like SynthID I see a net positive especially since it doesn't degrade text quality. I dream about a browser extension running at all times that makes text more translucent based on the confidence of LLM writing[0].

This article's suggestion of using it to unmask whistleblowers is very interesting and not something I'd thought about though. Still not convinced that spymark is a better name though.

[0]: Sean Goedecke's Deckard is close but it would rather invisible than bright red https://www.seangoedecke.com/deckard/

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autoexec 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> spymark to my ears sounds designed to be sound very negative when invisible watermarks are not always negative, e.g. the counterfeit bank note example.

The article calls out watermarks intended to deter counterfeiting as explicitly being not spymarks. Watermarks can tell you about the items marked, not about the person using/creating it.

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pixl97 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

These spy marks are a great way to teach AI how to create a hidden communication channel in plain sight.

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aesthesia 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Due to their essentially cryptographic nature, I don't think SynthID et al are very easy for LLMs to speak natively. They have other ways of doing steganography.

	▲	dragonwriter 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		LLMs with access to tools like code execution don't need channels they can “speak natively".

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SV_BubbleTime 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yea, it’s AGI, and it’s been really helpful! Oddly enough it’s just really loves sharing cat memes with the other instances! Weird, but not at all like all those dooms day scenarios guessed it would be…

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lukewarm707 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

the spymark tracks you. it is negative.

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Ygg2 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's the difference between watermark or marked bills.

One is proof of authenticity, other is tracking tool.

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shevy-java 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think they are always negative. Including on bank notes.

I wonder if we could have a real, open and direct democracy. All the models we have right now work via indirect clowns. Then again, looking at how some people vote, perhaps direct democracy can only work if people are clever.

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GuB-42 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The problem with direct democracy is not that people are dumb, it is that they are incompetent.

To do politics right take skills, and I don't expect the average mechanic to be better at it than the average politician is at fixing cars. How should I know if we should subsidize organic farming, ban alcohol sale after 8PM, or increase the defense budget? At least in theory, politicians are professionals who deal with these kinds of questions, they are supposed to know the technical and social implications, or find experts to help them if they don't. Some people think they know, and judging by how stupid most of their ideas are, they don't. I don't blame them, it is just not their field, and my ideas are probably just as stupid anyways.

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mvlipwig 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If checking for counterfeit bills becomes harder, trust in the currency is degraded. Once that happens, vendors will either incentive digital payments (which are definitionally tracked), switch to a tracked currency, or barter more. Trust in bills is super easy to take for granted.

	▲	j16sdiz an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Your use case asks for a visible watermark, not an invisible one.

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dgoldstein0 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Eh bank notes have watermarks just to make them harder to forge. They also have serial numbers, but as almost no businesses pay attention to them they aren't really used to track transactions. The provenance of a particular bank note isn't that interesting beyond knowing whether it's a forgery.

The problem with these spymarks is that they can be used to include data that's completely invisible to users - even potentially to sophisticated users and the programs that consume the marked files. So while I can make an informed decision whether to share a picture, I may not be informed about any spymarks. Vs a normal watermark that aren't designed to be invisible.

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rizonio 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"tracking watermark" seems clearer to me than "spymark"

	▲	autoexec 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Spymark or even just "tracker" would better at conveying the purpose. I think the goal is to find a single word that means "tracking watermark" or "a watermark that tracks you" because right now companies are pushing the term "watermark" to obscure what the marks are actually for.