01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100001 01101100 00111111
edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of “em” dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they’re just dashes to me, so…
Ai doesn’t use a hypen, and it doesn’t put space between the words and the dash.
For example, If I were using a dash - I’d use it like this.
Ai uses it—like this.
I love dashes – they help better convey the flow of my thinking in written form.
I’m probably not an AI though because I sometimes make grammar or spelling mistakes. Since english isn’t my native language.
Yeah I use them a ton
It’s em-dashes and semi-colons too. I use both of those on a regular basis so can empathize with OP.
Same. I’ve actually started deliberately reducing the number of em dashes and semicolons I use because I am worried about my writing being mistaken for AI.
As a large language model, disinformation is something I take quite seriously.
And with the machines I assume
I use em and en dashes according to traditional grammar rules. Been that way for years. It just looks and reads nicer. AI won’t take that from me.
The whole em dash argument is bullshit propagated by LinkedIn lunatics with zero knowledge of AI, writing or typography.
Different types of dashes/hyphens have different uses. People who take care of their copy and understand the nuances of punctuation use em dashes regularly. People who are in a rush, typing on phones or simply who don’t know any better, put the same en dash everywhere.
Em dashes is one of the things that LLMs actually do right for a change. Calling text with em dashes weird, unnatural or ai generated is like making fun of someone for using proper grammar or hygiene.
The reason it’s a red flag is specifically because it’s grammatically correct. People don’t tend to write like that online. Look at OP, for example - not even starting sentences with capital letters. That’s why it stands out when something is written too well to be human. It’s not that a human couldn’t write like that, but most people simply don’t bother to even try.
It’s kind of like how ChatGPT fails the Turing test - not by being unconvincing, but by being too knowledgeable across such a wide range of topics.
People also don’t type in proper punctuation because our keyboards are stuck in the olden times and most online forum and social media platforms are same old garbage what comes to typography.
I’m an amateur writer, I love it when word processors replace straight quotes (") with proper double quotes based on the language (“like this”, ”kuten näin”, «comme ça») and instead of minus (-) you get actual real dashes—as one does. But good luck implementing this on social media. Even blogware handles this pretty badly, the only way to get proper punctuation is to write the post in a word processor.
I think you’re missing the point here. Nobody is saying em dashes are making texts worse.
They’re just one of many indicators that can together allow for a good guess as to whether a text is AI generated or not.
Of course not all texts using them are AI generated, but if you also bold random words, use a lot of unnecessary and obscure emoji, put everything into bulletpoints and end your text with a useless summary, then people might get suspicious.
Depending on the phone and keyboard, I actually find it easier to use em and en dashes on mobile instead of the computer. Usually on mobile I can just hit the button for numbers/symbols and long-press the hyphen-minus, then select the appropriate alternate dash. Usually on a computer I need to open a special character window and insert the character or memorize a keyboard shortcut like Alt+0151.
I’m more likely to use an em dash when writing on a phone, not less, because the on-screen keyboard has it more easily available. It’s when I’m using a physical keyboard writing on desktop that I’m more likely to use two hyphens.
It’s that an iPhone keyboard? My android does not seem to have an em dash easily accessed. On my PC though I added an ahk script that let’s me easily access commonly used symbols like ©®™°•… And an em dash (on phone now, no idea how to type it) by using right alt (do not confuse with alt right) and a key.
Gboard on Android is great for dashes. Of course privacy people will look for alternatives
that’s the breath of somewhat-unpredicted fresh air i was hoping to breathe
edit- i should add that i don’t mean “predicted” in the llm sense.
I also use em dashes. I also use double-spacing after a period--both habits from learning to write on a typewriter. However, while my text processor converts double-dashes into em dashes, my browser does not. So, when I see em dashes in a forum post, I naturally become suspicious. It is very rare for me to write a post in a text editor and then copy/paste it into a text area, and I assume this to be true with others as well.
i usually use (compose key + --. (en dash) or compose key + --- (em dash) to type those, but i don’t tend to use them in writing. instead, i use en dashes for number ranges (e.g.: 3–4, 10–20) to avoid it being confused with subtraction.
It’s not a proof that something was written by AI but it’s a red flag.
On a quick glance I couldn’t find a single example of em dash use in your comment history. You’re using hyphens instead.
thanks - and i guess that’s the point i should have emphasized. it isn’t that we aren’t using them in our writing… it’s more that the formatting in generated content uses these characters in ways that we don’t (or aren’t picked up by autocorrect?) when we write authentically
what’s the deal?
01001110 01101001 01100011 01100101 00100000
I use them too and I hate seeing them substituted by hyphens. High five.
I must be an AI, then—does that mean I should charge for a subscription when I answer a question; maybe adding an extra premium fee on top of that sub each I’m also using a semi-column in the same sentence?
I have no idea how representative these stupid remarks you mentioned are to be considered but it’s interesting to realize how their own ignorance of a certain know-how/knowledge is so, so easily becoming a proof for them that the use of said tool/knowledge by other people is making those people suspicious.
In a working society, when faced with something one doesn’t know, aka faced with one’s own ignorance, one would see that as an opportunity to learn something new and become less ignorant. Not anymore. Following their own ‘reasoning’, it’s now being used as a proof that the other person must be some bot/AI, that they must be something non-human and suspicious. Difference is not considered an opportunity to enrich oneself anymore, it’s an anomaly.
When dumb starts defining what’s ‘normal’—and what’s human—one better start worrying, imho.
Btw, using the ‘Azerty (French alt)’ keyboard layout on Linux, this poor em-dash is just a Shift+AltGr+’ away—why wouldn’t I want to use it?
Legal disclaimer: this comment was generated by Libb, the first French English-speaking AI that’s as human-looking as anything French can be. It was trained on baguettes and wine—please, say ‘cheese’ in the next 20 seconds, if you don’t want for Libb to give you a real French kiss.
slow clap
Bowing in front of the one-person cheering crowd.
I just realized, you did not say ‘cheese’? Come closer ;)
um… cheese?
why do i feel like you wear masks in private?
um… cheese?
Wait? What? You were not supposed to say… Well, ok. Fine. Doesn’t matter. I will have another glass of wine instead.
why do i feel like you wear masks in private?
I don’t know (and I don’t know probably because I don’t wear one and neither do I wear a mask in public btw, save when I have a cold) but I would like to know.
gotta say i’m a bit deflated. you built up so much weirdo energy that i expected a payoff. we were on the verge of putting the lotion in the basket. we could have been so much more
gotta say i’m a bit deflated. you built up so much weirdo energy that i expected a payoff. we were on the verge of putting the lotion in the basket. we could have been so much more
All things must come to an end, even the most beautiful stories. Plus, to be 100% honest with you, I just met that cute Dutch cheese lover…
gotta say i’m a bit deflated. you built up so much weirdo energy
I will take that as a compliment ;)
Em dashes are hyped up, but most people aren’t writing up bulleted lists themselves for a random email.
i have three reasons i’d like to share about why i disagree, but now i’m self-conscious :P
Here’s your list of Cupcake Ingredients:
- 1 Cup of Flour
- 1 Cup of Flint, Michigan Nestle-Water
- 1 Cup of Highly Tariffed “Freedom” Eggs
- 12 fl oz of Fine Moscow Polonium
For Improved Information Accuracy, please purchase an OpenAI subscription at 50% off today! Satisfaction Guaranteed!
11/10 i made these and my children are literally glowing with happiness now
Compare
—
(alt 0151)
to
-
(alt 45)
Most people aren’t taking the time to type in
ctrl+shift+u+2+0+1+4when a regular minus-dash would get the point across with a single keystroke. But there is enough of a distinction that some people (like you and I) will use the proper punctuation when there is an opportunity to do so.What I find far more suspicious is the unicode hyphen, because no human would be able to tell the difference, and would therefore always choose to input a minus.
Not sure, if that’s a Linux thing, but I can press
Alt Grand-to get an en-dash, as wellAlt GrandShiftand-to get an em-dash.Mine gives me \ for
AltGr+-and ¿ forAltGr+shift+-but that’s probably a keyboard layout thingProbably depends on the desktop environment, on Sway by default I need to use the compose key.
Most people aren’t taking the time to type in ctrl+shift+u+2+0+1+4 when a regular minus-dash would get the point across with a single keystroke.
emacs:
-
C-x 8 _ m -
C-x 8 RET e m SPC d TAB RET
emacs using input methods
-
C-\ T e X RETto enter TeX input method.- - -to enter an em dash when in that input method. -
C-\ s g m l RETto enter sgml input method.& m d a s h ;to enter an em dash when in that input method. -
C-\ r f c 1 3 4 5 RETto enter rfc1345 input method.& - Mto enter an em dash when in that input method.
For X11 or Wayland, if you have assigned a key to be Compose: Compose and then three hyphens to get an em dash.
I use emacs every day but idk if this post is putting its best foot forward lol
The stuff there is a heck of a lot easier to input than memorizing numeric Unicode codepoints and using GTK’s control-shift-U thing that the parent post was suggesting.
Emacs also can do that (
C-\ u c s RETto enter ucs input method, andu 2 0 1 4with that input method enabled), but it’s almost certainly not how you want to input oddball characters unless you’ve no other choice.I don’t know, it seems like a fairly minimalist OS.
-
If I hold the - on my phone I get –—¯
You don’t have type all of that. E.g. on iOS you type two dashes and it is automatically converted to an emdash.
I promise I’m not AI when I test this out:
Beep boop bop—I’m a computer!
Regular dash: -
Em dash: —
(Apparently you can also hold the dash key down and it will give you a couple of different dash options and also a dot)
Fair, but then again, iOS autocorrect isn’t exactly not AI.
it’s not
It isn’t not not AI? Double-negatives have thrown me for a loop here.
No, you are not a computer.
thank you, fellow human.
