site.btaOpenAI Selects Martin Vechev for AI Text Watermarking Research

OpenAI has selected INSAIT Founder and Scientific Director Martin Vechev to help study and refine new text watermarking technology, the Education and Science Ministry said on Wednesday.

Vechev is among a select group of leading researchers chosen for the work. INSAIT is Sofia University's Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology.

The technology embeds an invisible statistical signal during text generation. A dedicated detector can identify that signal rather than infer AI authorship from writing style.

The development comes as EU transparency rules draw greater attention to machine-readable marking and detection of AI-generated content.

The detector is not publicly available. OpenAI is giving selected researchers access to study and improve it, the Ministry added.

Vechev, an entrepreneur and co-founder of technology start-ups, won the John Atanasoff Award for achievements in computer and information technologies in 2009.

An ETH Zurich professor with a Cambridge doctorate, he also received a European Research Council award in 2016.

In 2022, he secured EUR 2 million from the council to develop provably reliable and secure AI models, with potential applications in autonomous driving and medical diagnosis.

INSAIT was established at Sofia University in partnership with Switzerland's ETH Zurich and EPFL. It focuses on research, attracting outstanding international scientists and training future technology leaders.