People are over-estimating the positive predictive value of the em dash.
If you run it through Bayes theorem, the increase in probability that a given text is AI-generated if it contains an em dash is negligible.
If you disagree share your prior, marginal, and likelihoods.
jtwoodhouse · 2h ago
Two things are true here. The em dash shouldn’t automatically be a sign of AI writing. That said, they’re also been quite overused in recent years, which is probably causing them to be overrepresented in models.
You shouldn’t have that many asides to squeeze in, and you don’t need a em dash to make a sentence punchy. All tricks lose their power if you come to depend on them too much.
al_borland · 2h ago
As someone who bothered to learn the keyboard shortcuts for the em dash and ellipsis, this makes me sad.
Even in posts not using these things, I’ve been accused of being an AI bot a few times now. I’m not sure what it is I’m doing that makes people think that. My natural reaction is to double down on whatever I was trying to explain, which seems to make things worse. Such is life…
unethical_ban · 2h ago
I used to secretly assume any comment on reddit that uses direction quotation marks ” “ vs " " are bot or AI generated. But I believe that's just how iOS does it?
I wish a comment being completely vapid or trollish were indicator enough.
MarkusQ · 2h ago
You could just reserve your rancor for posts that are completely vapid or trollish — and ignore the issue of how they were created.
It works for me.
unethical_ban · 1h ago
Bot content deserves all the derision trolls do.
The best solution for me is to touch grass daily.
zappb · 1h ago
I assume those are people who write their comments in MS Word and copy the text with its smart quotes.
vincent-manis · 53m ago
Sorry, I wouldn't be caught dead using Word. I use quotation marks because that is the correct punctuation.
maratc · 33m ago
> that's just how iOS does it?
MacOS, too.
whatamidoingyo · 2h ago
I have some blogs that make use of Markdown. " is automatically rendered as a ”. Likewise, "--" is rendered as an em dash.
carlosjobim · 1h ago
People are psychotic everywhere online and will accuse you of anything and everything if you're not 100% aligned with their views.
mikestorrent · 1h ago
Very much so! I used to write responses online in the classic GPT formula with lots of bullets etc. and now I am deliberately ensuring that I don't over-formalize grammar so as to provide people with a little bit of confidence that I'm real... for what it's worth.
I used to spend a lot of time arguing online. Now, with Dead Internet Theory, it feels like it's just hammering home how useless that all was.
7jjjjjjj · 1h ago
All those people on Reddit who never found "Shift" or "Enter" on their keyboard are laughing at us now.
BizarroLand · 1h ago
Even when you are, people are on average so paranoid and suspicious of random internet strangers with malintent that the concept of reading a response while assuming good intentions has been lost.
All the coverage of emdash as LLM telltale inspired me to finally bother to learn how to type an emdash on a Mac keyboard…
mikestew · 48m ago
For those playing at home: Shift-Option-Hyphen.
whatamidoingyo · 2h ago
Last year, I had a writing contract for a popular blog. They required us to use the em dash. I bet they're regretting that now.
AndyNemmity · 2h ago
People are reading a lot of AI generated text and adopting its format as well.
nativeit · 15m ago
That’s a great point. Let me see if I can find a new way to word my reply—specifically, I will read through the comments above this, and consider other perspectives that might be relevant—and then try to answer your question again.
If you run it through Bayes theorem, the increase in probability that a given text is AI-generated if it contains an em dash is negligible.
If you disagree share your prior, marginal, and likelihoods.
You shouldn’t have that many asides to squeeze in, and you don’t need a em dash to make a sentence punchy. All tricks lose their power if you come to depend on them too much.
Even in posts not using these things, I’ve been accused of being an AI bot a few times now. I’m not sure what it is I’m doing that makes people think that. My natural reaction is to double down on whatever I was trying to explain, which seems to make things worse. Such is life…
I wish a comment being completely vapid or trollish were indicator enough.
It works for me.
The best solution for me is to touch grass daily.
MacOS, too.
I used to spend a lot of time arguing online. Now, with Dead Internet Theory, it feels like it's just hammering home how useless that all was.
https://archive.ph/xmefn
That’s a great point.