It’s an intriguing time in linguistics, with artificial intelligence steadily gaining abilities to mimic human language convincingly. In many cases, it gets tough to discern if a piece of writing is a human’s work or a creation of a machine. However, there’s one fleeting hint that’s frequently visible, our ever-evolving AI’s peculiar penchant for the humble em-dash.
There’s not a thing wrong with the em-dash; it’s a perfectly acceptable punctuation mark. Its excessive usage, however, is more often a characteristic of AI than it is of human writing, making it akin to a verbal tic for our synthetic intelligence. It is particularly true for language models carefully honed for producing polished prose. They lean heavily on our friend, the em-dash, to introduce rhythm and flow into their sentences. In doing so, their text tends to feel overly sleek, and sometimes, ironically, robotic.
Why such devotion to the em-dash, you ask? The em-dash is a versatile punctuation savior to AI—a quick substitute for commas, parentheses, and even colons—enabling AI to structure complex thoughts without breaking any grammatical rules. However, this consistency in usage is rare in human writing, as we naturally vary our sentence structures and use punctuation more intuitively.
When we use AI to rephrase or refine our text, it’s somewhat like handing a child a bottle of glitter glue. The result could certainly be shiny and attractive, but without supervision, let’s just say things can get slightly disorderly. The frequent overuse of em-dashes is just one of the telltale signs. The discerning reader can often spot AI-generated content noticing this and other subtle characteristics.
Identifying whether a piece of writing is AI-created or not isn’t always about the grammar alone. It’s crucial to focus on the rhythm, patterns in punctuation, and excessively refined phrasing. Our human writing has its peculiarities, inconsistencies, and organic rhythm—areas where AI continues to struggle faithfully to replicate.
As AI tools grow more advanced, they inevitably leave fingerprints—small but perceptible markers of their involvement. The em-dash is one such slip, a subtle cue revealing a machine’s role in the writing. So, the next time something reads a bit too perfect, spare a moment to scrutinize the punctuation. It might just reveal if you’re reading a human’s work or that of an AI.
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