Some here are arguing that mechanisms used by LLM providers already derail the goal of "the very best, most precise words at every single decision point", therefore the author is misguided.

The author has expressed a preference. Assume that there is a sequence of tokens, such that it is considered the absolute best by the author. This particular method of watermarking makes it less likely to generate that sequence, by definition.

I feel their argument would have been clearer and stronger if they had spent more time exploring the alternatives, and whether these alternatives would be just as effective. It is trivially easy to remove invisible tokens.

Like it or not, there is a public good to being able to identify AI generated content, and a small degredation in quality is tolerable in my opinion.

I don't think anybody has to worry about this issue though. Manual writing, coding, and proof reading continues to be an option. Where AI output is nothing to be ashamed of, the tools are available. For everyone else, there will be LLM providers that ignore EU law.