Em Dash

When you see one, it’s AI. In any text, if there’s a dash anywhere, AI wrote it. It’s a guarantee. Except, it is not. I recently dove into my old websites in my This Domain post. I noticed something. All the way back in 2004 I used dashes in my writing. They show up in the screenshot I took of my site in 2012 as well. Twice even! Both the first and the second post have one. There’s three of them in the first post of this website even.

I’ve noticed that the rise of AI has had an effect on my writing. I actively try not to write with dashes anymore. I think I fear people think it’s AI. It is not. What’s the point of writing a personal blog, if it’s not written by you? I notice myself writing a dash when making a blog post and it’ll break my flow. I’ll stop, back up and see if I can write it another way just so it’s human, not AI. This is insane. I should be able to write any way I like. I mean, it’s been part of my writing style since forever.

Come to think of it… AI has learned to use the dash. How did it learn? From online data. Maybe, just maybe I am partly responsible for AI’s love of the dash. And because I am actively trying not to use it anymore, maybe future AI will stop using it too, which means I can get back to using it again…