people keep talking about how "em dashes" are evidence of ai. i use them all the time. am i a computer now?
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01101100 00111111edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..
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01101100 00111111edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..
The whole em dash argument is bullshit propagated by LinkedIn lunatics with zero knowledge of AI, writing or typography.
Different types of dashes/hyphens have different uses. People who take care of their copy and understand the nuances of punctuation use em dashes regularly. People who are in a rush, typing on phones or simply who don't know any better, put the same en dash everywhere.
Em dashes is one of the things that LLMs actually do right for a change. Calling text with em dashes weird, unnatural or ai generated is like making fun of someone for using proper grammar or hygiene.
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01101100 00111111edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..
AI finally teaching people correct typography. /s
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AI finally teaching people correct typography. /s
'Correct' is a very interesting opinion here...
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01101100 00111111edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..
Next you're going to tell me using an Oxford comma is AI. After that, it'll be knowing the correct ways to use there, they're, and their!
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01101100 00111111edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..
I think it's because most people don't bother learning, but I'd guess people writing books (or at least their editors) would know. AI eats up all the books and learns how to use em dashes. The majority of the internet-using population does not use it. And so you get the heuristic that em dash = AI. This is just a total guess, by the way.
Looked up the difference between hyphens, em dashes, and en dashes in high school. Maybe for curiosity, maybe for some assignment, I forget by now. Started using em and en dashes, not going to stop now.
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01101100 00111111edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..
The em-dash is mostly used in books. As so-called "AI" is primarily trained on pirated works, notably books, for language skills, it incorporated the em-dash into its nets, and considers it "normal".
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Next you're going to tell me using an Oxford comma is AI. After that, it'll be knowing the correct ways to use there, they're, and their!
Why do we need three different words for the same thing?
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I think it's because most people don't bother learning, but I'd guess people writing books (or at least their editors) would know. AI eats up all the books and learns how to use em dashes. The majority of the internet-using population does not use it. And so you get the heuristic that em dash = AI. This is just a total guess, by the way.
Looked up the difference between hyphens, em dashes, and en dashes in high school. Maybe for curiosity, maybe for some assignment, I forget by now. Started using em and en dashes, not going to stop now.
more like it requires the use of an alt code, and humans aint got time for that shit in casual 'speechtype.' there's literally nothing you can say with an emdash that a well-placed semicolon (and/or a few other tools) couldn't solve with a slightly reconstructed sentence structure. if you're using them, especially repeatedly within a couple paragraphs, you're either: unusually resistant to the tedium and friction of breaking your stride to type alt 0151; writing formally; a bot. i'll give you three guesses which is most likely.
personally I've stopped using proper grammar and spelling and formal language and capitalization and whatnot as a sortof 'proof of humanity.' people who use em-dash in anything but formal writing are just self-flagging themselves as bots at this point. even in formal writing you better have yourself a robust edit log.
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more like it requires the use of an alt code, and humans aint got time for that shit in casual 'speechtype.' there's literally nothing you can say with an emdash that a well-placed semicolon (and/or a few other tools) couldn't solve with a slightly reconstructed sentence structure. if you're using them, especially repeatedly within a couple paragraphs, you're either: unusually resistant to the tedium and friction of breaking your stride to type alt 0151; writing formally; a bot. i'll give you three guesses which is most likely.
personally I've stopped using proper grammar and spelling and formal language and capitalization and whatnot as a sortof 'proof of humanity.' people who use em-dash in anything but formal writing are just self-flagging themselves as bots at this point. even in formal writing you better have yourself a robust edit log.
Push dash twice on a phone, no alt code needed. Almost no one uses social media on a computer anymore.
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Push dash twice on a phone, no alt code needed. Almost no one uses social media on a computer anymore.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]im here on my phone this time and -- i'll be fucked i didnt know that. are you sure its not lemmy autoformatting?
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im here on my phone this time and -- i'll be fucked i didnt know that. are you sure its not lemmy autoformatting?
I guess it’s device dependent. —
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I guess it’s device dependent. —
wrote on last edited by [email protected]no it seems to have formatted actually. you caught me before i could ninja edit
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Why do we need three different words for the same thing?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Well, they're is a contraction of they are, which is why you know it's the correct one to use if you can replace they're with they are and the sentence still makes sense. The word their is possessive so if you're talking about someone or even something possessing something else, you would use their. There is in reference to something or somewhere else.
I can't remember the specific rules I was taught in school, but I still know the correct usage many years later.
There was a snake over there, they're trying to find it now, cause it isn't native and none of our friends say it is their snake!
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more like it requires the use of an alt code, and humans aint got time for that shit in casual 'speechtype.' there's literally nothing you can say with an emdash that a well-placed semicolon (and/or a few other tools) couldn't solve with a slightly reconstructed sentence structure. if you're using them, especially repeatedly within a couple paragraphs, you're either: unusually resistant to the tedium and friction of breaking your stride to type alt 0151; writing formally; a bot. i'll give you three guesses which is most likely.
personally I've stopped using proper grammar and spelling and formal language and capitalization and whatnot as a sortof 'proof of humanity.' people who use em-dash in anything but formal writing are just self-flagging themselves as bots at this point. even in formal writing you better have yourself a robust edit log.
I do hope you believe I'm a human ;-; you can probably go check all my comments and notice the many edits on them, because I often remember a point I want to make or think of a way I can express myself better after the fact, and I never thought being the type who comments my thoughts immediately instead carefully revising and waiting an hour or so (although to be fair, who does that?) would be the one proof of my humanity. Well, hopefully. It's entirely possible you still believe I must be a bot, because they have probably gotten good at mimicking humans, including professions to be human and not bots, given how many sci-fi stories are written with robots and humans interacting and proof being needed or whatever. (Wouldn't know, don't use them myself.)
I typed from a phone. Creating an em dash is holding down on the hyphen button (which is already a bit of extra effort to get to) and sliding over two keys, pretty easy and fast. I just tested typing an em dash on my computer. I do not actually have an alt key due to being a Mac user (maybe newer ones or older ones have it?). For me, it's Option+Shift+the hyphen key. It is slower to type an em dash for me than just a plain hyphen on both phone and computer, but not slow enough or irritating enough for me to make me choose not to. I feel my stubborn insistence on using em dashes, despite the disadvantage it gives me on getting perceived as a human being, could in itself be proof of my humanity, because what else do I gain besides a speck of affirmation of my identity as the type of person who still wants to use em dashes? Although of course only in this conversation, because most people who think me botlike would probably dismiss me as a bot and move on instead of replying to me and saying why they think I'm a bot: no chance to defend myself, and why would you let what you think to be a bot spew more slop at you about its supposed humanity? I'm also already comfortable using em dashes, maybe a fraction of a second wasted, whereas rewording my sentences, my train-of-thought run-on sentences typed straight from my stream of consciousness, to avoid em dashes is more effort for me, personally. Although you could make the argument that given my willingness to learn to do things the right way, I ought to type without run-on sentences and give people more of a signal I'm not a bot, and drop the em dashes so I am one less false negative when using the "em dash automatically equals bot" strategy.
Not saying you think I specifically am a bot, of course
Your approach probably works too. I learned to type in your manner because people did it on tumblr and I used to use that site. Bots do lean towards more formal grammar correctness, but I wouldn't write off the possibility of telling it to type informally, without capital letters, and with the occasional omission of punctuation when not needed for expression or clarity. Or straight up telling them to write like they are on tumblr. However, I would write off a human lazy enough to use a bot to impersonate people as not bothering to try to vary the typing styles. -
no it seems to have formatted actually. you caught me before i could ninja edit
Not on my end
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Not on my end
oh. thats wacky. it shows up for me on the live post but not the edit?
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I do hope you believe I'm a human ;-; you can probably go check all my comments and notice the many edits on them, because I often remember a point I want to make or think of a way I can express myself better after the fact, and I never thought being the type who comments my thoughts immediately instead carefully revising and waiting an hour or so (although to be fair, who does that?) would be the one proof of my humanity. Well, hopefully. It's entirely possible you still believe I must be a bot, because they have probably gotten good at mimicking humans, including professions to be human and not bots, given how many sci-fi stories are written with robots and humans interacting and proof being needed or whatever. (Wouldn't know, don't use them myself.)
I typed from a phone. Creating an em dash is holding down on the hyphen button (which is already a bit of extra effort to get to) and sliding over two keys, pretty easy and fast. I just tested typing an em dash on my computer. I do not actually have an alt key due to being a Mac user (maybe newer ones or older ones have it?). For me, it's Option+Shift+the hyphen key. It is slower to type an em dash for me than just a plain hyphen on both phone and computer, but not slow enough or irritating enough for me to make me choose not to. I feel my stubborn insistence on using em dashes, despite the disadvantage it gives me on getting perceived as a human being, could in itself be proof of my humanity, because what else do I gain besides a speck of affirmation of my identity as the type of person who still wants to use em dashes? Although of course only in this conversation, because most people who think me botlike would probably dismiss me as a bot and move on instead of replying to me and saying why they think I'm a bot: no chance to defend myself, and why would you let what you think to be a bot spew more slop at you about its supposed humanity? I'm also already comfortable using em dashes, maybe a fraction of a second wasted, whereas rewording my sentences, my train-of-thought run-on sentences typed straight from my stream of consciousness, to avoid em dashes is more effort for me, personally. Although you could make the argument that given my willingness to learn to do things the right way, I ought to type without run-on sentences and give people more of a signal I'm not a bot, and drop the em dashes so I am one less false negative when using the "em dash automatically equals bot" strategy.
Not saying you think I specifically am a bot, of course
Your approach probably works too. I learned to type in your manner because people did it on tumblr and I used to use that site. Bots do lean towards more formal grammar correctness, but I wouldn't write off the possibility of telling it to type informally, without capital letters, and with the occasional omission of punctuation when not needed for expression or clarity. Or straight up telling them to write like they are on tumblr. However, I would write off a human lazy enough to use a bot to impersonate people as not bothering to try to vary the typing styles.honestly this and the other comment have me second guessing. i was being awful windows centric.
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01101100 00111111edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..
Yes - anyone could be
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oh. thats wacky. it shows up for me on the live post but not the edit?
Just checked your home instance. feddit.org seems to be a Lemmy instance. I'm on Mbin, which is a totally different software. That could be the difference.
EDIT: Just checked how the comment appears your instance. It indeed shows up as one line instead of two on your Lemmy instance, though running that line through https://babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatisit.html confirms my suspicion that it shows it shows as an en dash, not an em dash.
