Robust Text Watermarking for Large Language Models via Dual Semantic Embeddings
About
This work presents Dual-Embedding Watermarking (DEW), a semantic watermarking scheme for large language models (LLMs) that leverages contextual and token-level embeddings to enhance robustness against paraphrasing and translation. DEW utilizes a signal-processing methodology, applying algebraic vector-space operations to token and context embeddings to derive a watermark signal that degrades gracefully under semantic shifts. The method obfuscates the watermark by projecting embedding vectors through pseudo-random matrices seeded with a secret key. Relevant distributions derived from the underlying algebra are evaluated and employed for statistical testing and benchmarking of DEW. Experimental results across multiple LLMs indicate that DEW improves post-paraphrase detection while maintaining competitive text quality, and remains detectable after translation, even when prior semantic watermarks degrade significantly. These findings position DEW as a practical and robust solution for safeguarding LLM-generated text and addressing critical issues in responsible AI deployment.
Related benchmarks
| Task | Dataset | Result | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Watermark Detection | C4 Post-paraphrasing | TPR @ 1% FPR74.6 | 17 | |
| Watermark Detection | C4 Post-translation tr-de | TPR @ 1% FPR65 | 17 | |
| Watermark Detection | C4 Post-translation tr-fr | TPR @ 1% FPR49.8 | 17 | |
| Text Quality Evaluation | C4 Watermarked | PPL9.063 | 17 | |
| Watermark Detection | C4 Unmodified | TPR @ 1% FPR99.8 | 17 | |
| Text Quality Assessment | Gemma-7B Unmodified watermarked text quality | Perplexity (PPL)12.188 | 11 | |
| Text Watermark Detection | Gemma-7B Unmodified human-authored texts | TPR @ 1% FPR100 | 11 | |
| Text Watermark Detection | Gemma-7B Post-translation to German human-authored texts | TPR @ 1% FPR53.4 | 11 | |
| Text Watermark Detection | Gemma-7B Post-translation to French human-authored texts | TPR @ 1% FPR42.8 | 11 | |
| Text Watermark Detection | Gemma-7B Post-paraphrasing human-authored texts | TPR @ 1% FPR65.4 | 11 |