Reclaiming the Emdash

You can’t move on social media for posts speaking about “The 10 Signs of AI-Generated Content,” and invariably, each of them will mention the humble emdash.

They all scream and shout from the rooftops that the harmless little line — the staple of grammar for centuries — is a warning sign that this or that piece of content has been written by AI.

There’s truth to this, of course. Emdash usage has surged in recent years, conveniently aligning with the rise of large language models (LLMs) becoming widespread among consumers. So it’s not a secret that AI does love to use the emdash.

But does that mean we should all stop using it?

I’m Using the Emdash Again

For a while, I’ve intentionally avoided using the emdash for the reasons above. And I know several other people have also been doing the same.

We think that if we’re seen to be using the inoffensive little line, people are going to assume what we publish has been written (either partly or fully) by tools like Chat-GPT.

That’s a valid concern, but at some point, we’re going to have to reclaim control of this cool piece of punctuation.

So that’s why I’m using the emdash again.

Ultimately, I cannot control what others think about my writing. I can’t control if people think I’ve used AI.

If the emdash is a marker for AI, then so be it. All I can do is be confident in my work, and confident that AI hasn’t played a part in anything I publish.

We’re all worried about the “human” being stripped away from content. But what could be more human than knowing AIs use the emdash — and still using it anyway?