# From Text to Source: Results in Detecting Large Language Model-Generated Content

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.13322 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.13322/

## Key facts

- Cited by 26 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Watermarking generated content and models, one of 12 directions in LLM safety and security.
- Builds on 38 of its 54 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Sep 2023.

## Placed in

- LLM safety and security / [Watermarking generated content and models](https://mlsanity.com/safety/watermarking-generated-content-and-models/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05685/) (2023)
- [Deep reinforcement learning from human preferences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03741/) (2017)
- [Finetuned Language Models Are Zero-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.01652/) (2021)
- [OPT: Open Pre-trained Transformer Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01068/) (2022)
- [A Survey of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.18223/) (2023)
- [The Pile: An 800GB Dataset of Diverse Text for Language Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00027/) (2020)
- [DeBERTa: Decoding-enhanced BERT with Disentangled Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.03654/) (2020)
- [Fine-Tuning Language Models from Human Preferences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.08593/) (2019)
- [BLOOM: A 176B-Parameter Open-Access Multilingual Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.05100/) (2022)
- [GPTQ: Accurate Post-Training Quantization for Generative Pre-trained Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.17323/) (2022)
- [Pythia: A Suite for Analyzing Large Language Models Across Training and Scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01373/) (2023)
- [DeBERTaV3: Improving DeBERTa using ELECTRA-Style Pre-Training with Gradient-Disentangled Embedding Sharing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09543/) (2021)
- [The RefinedWeb Dataset for Falcon LLM: Outperforming Curated Corpora with Web Data, and Web Data Only](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.01116/) (2023)
- [DetectGPT: Zero-Shot Machine-Generated Text Detection using Probability Curvature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11305/) (2023)
- [A Watermark for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10226/) (2023)
- [Cross-Task Generalization via Natural Language Crowdsourcing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08773/) (2021)
- [Defending Against Neural Fake News](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.12616/) (2019)
- [Release Strategies and the Social Impacts of Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.09203/) (2019)
- [GLTR: Statistical Detection and Visualization of Generated Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04043/) (2019)
- [How Close is ChatGPT to Human Experts? Comparison Corpus, Evaluation, and Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.07597/) (2023)
- [Can AI-Generated Text be Reliably Detected?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11156/) (2023)
- [Undetectable Watermarks for Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.09194/) (2023)
- [RADAR: Robust AI-Text Detection via Adversarial Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03838/) (2023)
- [Automatic Detection of Machine Generated Text: A Critical Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01314/) (2020)
- [TweepFake: about Detecting Deepfake Tweets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.00036/) (2020)
- [Cerebras-GPT: Open Compute-Optimal Language Models Trained on the Cerebras Wafer-Scale Cluster](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03208/) (2023)
- [Is GPT-3 Text Indistinguishable from Human Text? Scarecrow: A Framework for Scrutinizing Machine Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.01294/) (2021)
- [On the Possibilities of AI-Generated Text Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04736/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [Detecting Multimedia Generated by Large AI Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.00045/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Detection of LLMs-Generated Content](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15654/) (2023)
- [Idiosyncrasies in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12150/) (2025)
- [CollabStory: Multi-LLM Collaborative Story Generation and Authorship Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12665/) (2024)
- [Detecting Machine-Generated Texts: Not Just "AI vs Humans" and Explainability is Complicated](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.18259/) (2024)
- [Large Language Models Penetration in Scholarly Writing and Peer Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11193/) (2025)
- [Natural Fingerprints of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.14871/) (2025)
- [Synthetic Lyrics Detection Across Languages and Genres](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15231/) (2024)
- [DART: An AIGT Detector using AMR of Rephrased Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11517/) (2024)
- [Every Step Counts: Decoding Trajectories as Authorship Fingerprints of dLLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.05148/) (2025)
- [How Sampling Affects the Detectability of Machine-written texts: A Comprehensive Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.13681/) (2025)
- [MOSAIC: Multiple Observers Spotting AI Content](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.07615/) (2024)
- [On the Detectability of LLM-Generated Text: What Exactly Is LLM-Generated Text?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.20810/) (2025)
- [A Visual Semantic Adaptive Watermark grounded by Prefix-Tuning for Large Vision-Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.07291/) (2026)
- [AI-Generated Song Detection via Lyrics Transcripts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18488/) (2025)
- [Invariant Features in Language Models: Geometric Characterization and Model Attribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.06458/) (2026)
- [Black-Box Forensics for Conversational LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22698/) (2026)
- [Scaling Model-Generated Distillation Data Can Make Latent Teacher Traits More Recoverable](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.26958/) (2026)
- [Is the Digital Forensics and Incident Response Pipeline Ready for Text-Based Threats in LLM Era?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17870/) (2024)
- [Asymmetric Idiosyncrasies in Multimodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.22734/) (2026)
- [Beyond Via: Analysis and Estimation of the Impact of Large Language Models in Academic Papers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25638/) (2026)
- [Implicit Identity Technologies for LLMs: Fingerprinting and Watermarking across Datasets, Models, and Generated Content](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29245/) (2026)
- [TextMachina: Seamless Generation of Machine-Generated Text Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03946/) (2024)
- [InterPol: De-anonymizing LM Arena via Interpolated Preference Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.15220/) (2026)
- [How Much Were You Told? Measuring External Information in Peer Reviews](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.28041/) (2026)
- [Anosognosia in LLMs: Probing Self-Awareness of Quantized Computational Substrate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.06174/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The widespread use of Large Language Models (LLMs), celebrated for their ability to generate human-like text, has raised concerns about misinformation and ethical implications. Addressing these concerns necessitates the development of robust methods to detect and attribute text generated by LLMs. This paper investigates "Cross-Model Detection," by evaluating whether a classifier trained to distinguish between source LLM-generated and human-written text can also detect text from a target LLM without further training. The study comprehensively explores various LLM sizes and families, and assesses the impact of conversational fine-tuning techniques, quantization, and watermarking on classifier generalization. The research also explores Model Attribution, encompassing source model identification, model family, and model size classification, in addition to quantization and watermarking detection. Our results reveal several key findings: a clear inverse relationship between classifier effectiveness and model size, with larger LLMs being more challenging to detect, especially when the classifier is trained on data from smaller models. Training on data from similarly sized LLMs can improve detection performance from larger models but may lead to decreased performance when dealing with smaller models. Additionally, model attribution experiments show promising results in identifying source models and model families, highlighting detectable signatures in LLM-generated text, with particularly remarkable outcomes in watermarking detection, while no detectable signatures of quantization were observed. Overall, our study contributes valuable insights into the interplay of model size, family, and training data in LLM detection and attribution.