Robust Detection of Watermarks for Large Language Models Under Human Edits

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Li, Xiang, Ruan, Feng, Wang, Huiyuan, Long, Qi, Su, Weijie J.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Li, Xiang
Ruan, Feng
Wang, Huiyuan
Long, Qi
Su, Weijie J.
author_facet Li, Xiang
Ruan, Feng
Wang, Huiyuan
Long, Qi
Su, Weijie J.
contents Watermarking has offered an effective approach to distinguishing text generated by large language models (LLMs) from human-written text. However, the pervasive presence of human edits on LLM-generated text dilutes watermark signals, thereby significantly degrading detection performance of existing methods. In this paper, by modeling human edits through mixture model detection, we introduce a new method in the form of a truncated goodness-of-fit test for detecting watermarked text under human edits, which we refer to as Tr-GoF. We prove that the Tr-GoF test achieves optimality in robust detection of the Gumbel-max watermark in a certain asymptotic regime of substantial text modifications and vanishing watermark signals. Importantly, Tr-GoF achieves this optimality \textit{adaptively} as it does not require precise knowledge of human edit levels or probabilistic specifications of the LLMs, in contrast to the optimal but impractical (Neyman--Pearson) likelihood ratio test. Moreover, we establish that the Tr-GoF test attains the highest detection efficiency rate in a certain regime of moderate text modifications. In stark contrast, we show that sum-based detection rules, as employed by existing methods, fail to achieve optimal robustness in both regimes because the additive nature of their statistics is less resilient to edit-induced noise. Finally, we demonstrate the competitive and sometimes superior empirical performance of the Tr-GoF test on both synthetic data and open-source LLMs in the OPT and LLaMA families.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_13868
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Robust Detection of Watermarks for Large Language Models Under Human Edits
Li, Xiang
Ruan, Feng
Wang, Huiyuan
Long, Qi
Su, Weijie J.
Methodology
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
Statistics Theory
Watermarking has offered an effective approach to distinguishing text generated by large language models (LLMs) from human-written text. However, the pervasive presence of human edits on LLM-generated text dilutes watermark signals, thereby significantly degrading detection performance of existing methods. In this paper, by modeling human edits through mixture model detection, we introduce a new method in the form of a truncated goodness-of-fit test for detecting watermarked text under human edits, which we refer to as Tr-GoF. We prove that the Tr-GoF test achieves optimality in robust detection of the Gumbel-max watermark in a certain asymptotic regime of substantial text modifications and vanishing watermark signals. Importantly, Tr-GoF achieves this optimality \textit{adaptively} as it does not require precise knowledge of human edit levels or probabilistic specifications of the LLMs, in contrast to the optimal but impractical (Neyman--Pearson) likelihood ratio test. Moreover, we establish that the Tr-GoF test attains the highest detection efficiency rate in a certain regime of moderate text modifications. In stark contrast, we show that sum-based detection rules, as employed by existing methods, fail to achieve optimal robustness in both regimes because the additive nature of their statistics is less resilient to edit-induced noise. Finally, we demonstrate the competitive and sometimes superior empirical performance of the Tr-GoF test on both synthetic data and open-source LLMs in the OPT and LLaMA families.
title Robust Detection of Watermarks for Large Language Models Under Human Edits
topic Methodology
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.13868