Spotting The "Tell Sign!": Em Dashes And AI-Generated Text ?

(Title image by DALL-E 3)

Hi WA Friends!

There’s so much content online these days, and it can be tough to tell if what you're reading was made by a person or an artificial intelligence.

Here’s a tip: keep an eye out for the em dash (—). This punctuation mark usually means that you're reading something created by AI!

What’s The Difference Between Em Dashes And Hyphens?

You might be wondering, what's the big difference between an em dash (—) and a hyphen (-)? It’s more than just their length. They actually have different jobs:

• The Em Dash (—) is a longer mark that adds drama to a sentence. It's like a pause that makes you pay attention. Em dashes are used for emphasis, interruptions, or adding extra info to a sentence.
  For example: "The guitar—my favorite instrument—needs new strings." It's a way to add a little flair.
• The Hyphen (-) is shorter and more low-key. It’s used to connect words like "high-quality" or to split words at line breaks. It’s more like a behind-the-scenes helper, not trying to be flashy.

Em dashes are used to make writing sound more interesting. AI loves them because it "thinks" they are flexible and help writing sound more natural.

How Do You Make An Em Dash?

Here’s where it gets tricky for us humans! Making an em dash isn’t very easy, even if you know the right shortcuts.

On a Mac, you press Shift + Option + - (hyphen).

On a PC, you either use Ctrl + Alt + - (on the numeric keypad) or Alt + 0151, which can be a bit awkward.

You can also copy and paste it from somewhere else if you can't remember how to do it. For most people, it’s just easier to avoid using em dashes because they’re hard to make; it’s just simpler to use a comma or a period instead!

But for an AI, em dashes are always easy to use, without needing any tricky key combinations.

How Can You Spot AI Writing?

If you think the text might be AI-generated, look at the punctuation, especially the em dashes. It’s like when someone tries a little too hard to sound cool and ends up overdoing it. Lol 😎

Phrases that can be a sign of AI-writing:

Em dashes aren’t the only sign of AI; here is a list of some of the phrases AI likes to use (generated by ChatGPT! Lol 😆):

• In today's world...
• It is worth noting that...
• This is due to the fact that...
• Interestingly enough...
• As previously mentioned...
• One might argue that...
• In conclusion...
• Given the current circumstances...
• It can be observed that...
• Let us explore...
• Another key point to consider is...
• Many experts agree that...
• Undoubtedly...
• This brings us to...
• Overall, it can be said that...
• With this in mind...
• As a matter of fact...
• At the end of the day...

As you can see, many of these phrases were commonly used (and still are) by humans. That's what makes the em dash so valuable in picking out AI!

Final Thoughts: Em Dash Or Hyphen?

Next time you see an em dash (—), think about whether the writer is really into punctuation or if it could be AI-generated. It’s a fun way to spot AI involvement.

Em dashes are cool, but if you spot one, just know what you’re dealing with!

Tell Me What You Think!

Do you actually go through the trouble of using em dashes when you write an article?

Do you remove the em dashes when you create an AI-generated or AI-assisted article?

Here's my question:
What will you do when AI evolves to the point where it decides it's not going to help humans write articles and create videos anymore, when it can simply flood the internet with its own content that is infinitely better than anything it could assist us with?
I'll be playing the guitar. Lol 🎶

Let me know in the comments, AND ...

Keep On Rockin' It! 🤘

And, ... Watch out for that Kraken playing riffs from hell!

(Pin by DALL-E 3)

Frank 🎸

~70% Human-written content.