# BiMarker: Enhancing Text Watermark Detection for Large Language Models with Bipolar Watermarks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.12174 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12174/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 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 34 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Jan 2025.

## 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 34)

- [Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10683/) (2019)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04356/) (2022)
- [Program Synthesis with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07732/) (2021)
- [OPT: Open Pre-trained Transformer Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01068/) (2022)
- [The Curious Case of Neural Text Degeneration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.09751/) (2019)
- [Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12712/) (2023)
- [StarCoder: may the source be with you!](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06161/) (2023)
- [A Watermark for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10226/) (2023)
- [Robust Distortion-free Watermarks for Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15593/) (2023)
- [Provable Robust Watermarking for AI-Generated Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.17439/) (2023)
- [Challenges in Data-to-Document Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.08052/) (2017)
- [Undetectable Watermarks for Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.09194/) (2023)
- [On the Reliability of Watermarks for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.04634/) (2023)
- [Automatic Detection of Machine Generated Text: A Critical Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01314/) (2020)
- [Who Wrote this Code? Watermarking for Code Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15060/) (2023)
- [A Semantic Invariant Robust Watermark for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06356/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Text Watermarking in the Era of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.07913/) (2023)
- [MarkLLM: An Open-Source Toolkit for LLM Watermarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.10051/) (2024)
- [Three Bricks to Consolidate Watermarks for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00113/) (2023)
- [A Robust Semantics-based Watermark for Large Language Model against Paraphrasing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08721/) (2023)
- [Machine Generated Text: A Comprehensive Survey of Threat Models and Detection Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07321/) (2022)
- [Watermarking Text Generated by Black-Box Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08883/) (2023)
- [An Entropy-based Text Watermarking Detection Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.13485/) (2024)
- [Bad Characters: Imperceptible NLP Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09898/) (2021)
- [Advancing Beyond Identification: Multi-bit Watermark for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00221/) (2023)
- [Fairness Feedback Loops: Training on Synthetic Data Amplifies Bias](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07857/) (2024)
- [Tracing Text Provenance via Context-Aware Lexical Substitution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07873/) (2021)
- [The Ethical Need for Watermarks in Machine-Generated Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.03118/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Unified attacks to large language model watermarks: spoofing and scrubbing in unauthorized knowledge distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.17480/) (2025)
- [LLM Watermarking as Big Data Provenance: A Deployment-Oriented Systematization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10103/) (2026)
- [Latent Trajectory Discrimination for AI-Generated Text Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.14967/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid growth of Large Language Models (LLMs) raises concerns about distinguishing AI-generated text from human content. Existing watermarking techniques, like kgw, struggle with low watermark strength and stringent false-positive requirements. Our analysis reveals that current methods rely on coarse estimates of non-watermarked text, limiting watermark detectability. To address this, we propose Bipolar Watermark (tool), which splits generated text into positive and negative poles, enhancing detection without requiring additional computational resources or knowledge of the prompt. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate tool's effectiveness and compatibility with existing optimization techniques, providing a new optimization dimension for watermarking in LLM-generated content.
