This feature is born out of the same government that created the cookie laws, so it makes sense to me that it would follow similar politically-valuable but practically-questionable set of beliefs.

Really, Anthropic (and the other labs that follow) are just trying to satisfy the requirements of the law so they can continue to serve the EU. Wether it's actually effective is something else entirely.

I for one value the transparency of being able to tell human-written content apart, especially when moving into a time where we’re suddenly questioning an AI agent's motivations. If that is ingrained so deeply into these systems they cannot rip it out without us noticing, there’s at least one more safeguard. I know how ludicrous this sounds, but you can’t deny AI development is speeding up to scary levels.

Additionally, think of cases like paying a lawyer or an expert for an extensive report or opinion on something. Wouldn’t you want to know if that is actually their carefully assembled professional assessment rather than the output of an LLM prompt?

None of this is science or evidence based, it's political theater. The labs do this because the government has made it clear it will intervene if they don't say the line. I suspect most of the people at the labs think AI watermarking is a retarded approach.

The people that make the laws and the people complaining about AI don't know or care about the reality of the situation nearly as much as they care about being re-elected and feeling good about their social posture.