Here is a dialog from the movie Office Space — and just to be clear; Michael Bolton in the movie are talking about Michael Bolton the singer.
- Michael Bolton: Yeah, well, at least your name isn’t Michael Bolton.
- Samir: You know, there’s nothing wrong with that name.
- Michael Bolton: There *was* nothing wrong with it… until I was about twelve years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
- Samir: Hmm… well, why don’t you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
- Michael Bolton: No way! Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks.
And this made me think about AI — and em dashes.
I have been told that em dash is the hallmark of AI writing, and that seeing em dashes in a text is a sure sign that an AI was involved. But this is simply not true.
Granted; AI do tend to use em dash and bullet points a lot, but that in itself proves nothing, although it can be an indication of AI writing.
The interesting thing is that the people who look at em dash and think “this must be AI”, are people that do not read much. And I could say that this is the hallmark of people using generative AI — they do not read. They do not know what good texts looks like.
(And based on my writing you may say that neither do I)
AI written text might look better than what most people write, but as John Gruber of Daring Fireball writes; most people are terrible writers, so the bar is low.
I would rather see your words, and more importantly, your thinking on a subject than a grammatically correct text with a lot of unnecessary fluff.
Writing is thinking after all, so why would you deprive yourself of this invaluable tool? And if you do not care to write it, why should I care to read it?
I am not against AI on everything. I use it for research (the glorified search engine), but I always check multiple sources if it is important. But for generative text and images? Please, spare me.
I like to use em dashes. Why should I change? It is AI that sucks.
There, I am done. Now go watch Office Space.