Why Anthropic is watermarking every word Claude writes | E26

This Week In AI is made possible by:Paypal OpenToday’s show:Anthropic’s new Claude watermark travels around any and all copy-and-pasted text. Is this a logical response to AI slop, or more overreach from those regulation-loving Europeans? The panel agrees that identifying AI outputs has a place, but divides on how the world should get there.PLUS everyone’s favorite section of Mark Zuckerberg’s 6500-word techno-optimist AI manifesto, exploring the frontier labs’ blatant hypocrisy around distillation, and why Texas is hitting the pause button on 474 GW of proposed data centers.Guests:Will Bryk: https://x.com/WilliamBrykExa: https://exa.ai/Josh Sirota: https://x.com/joshua_sirotaEragon: https://www.eragon.ai/Kashif “Kash” Ali: https://x.com/ChKashifAliTaxGPT: https://www.taxgpt.com/Relevant Links:Anthropic: How Claude marks AI-generated content: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16266773-how-claude-marks-ai-generated-contentCoalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA): https://c2pa.org/EU AI Act: Article 50 transparency obligations: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/TechCrunch: Pangram Raises $9M: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/29/as-ai-content-floods-the-internet-pangram-raises-9m-to-detect-it/TechCrunch: Anthropic’s landmark copyright settlement is approved: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/20/anthropics-landmark-1-5b-copyright-settlement-is-approved/World ID iris scanning orb: https://world.org/world-idTime: Sam Altman voices concern about “Dead Internet Theory”: https://time.com/7316046/sam-altman-dead-internet-theory/Meta: The Future is for Everyone: https://about.fb.com/news/2026/08/the-future-is-for-everyone/Meta: Introducing Muse Glimmer: https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-modelTexas: Gov. Abbott directs comprehensive data center audit: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-directs-comprehensive-data-center-auditTexas Tribune: New data center projects frozen: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/03/texas-data-center-project-audit-greg-abbott/ERCOT: https://www.ercot.com/Public Utility Commission of Texas: https://www.puc.texas.gov/TechCrunch on Sirota’s “software is dead” thesis: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/18/this-startup-wants-to-make-enterprise-software-look-more-like-a-prompt/River AI: https://river.ai/Thinking Machines Lab: https://thinkingmachines.ai/Timestamps:0:00 Guest Intros3:30 Anthropic to watermark Claude text5:50 Cracking down on AI Slop10:45 Will slop-trackers push users to open source16:21 Jason's "No Clankers" proposal23:01 Parsing Zuckerberg's techno-utopian manifesto39:27 The distillation double standard44:28 "When you're behind, go open…"51:17 Texas freezes new data centers1:04:12 Is software dead?1:05:39 Software managing, not engineering1:10:24 Everyone is vibecodingSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.com