It’s rare that a punctuation mark becomes grist for the online rumor mill. But recently, an uptick in focus on AI and its impacts has brought a Blake Lively-esque level of attention to the em dash, named for the footprint of the capital M and used to break up sentences, introduce clauses, mimic interrupted speech and more. The em dash is already quite accustomed to controversy, with a long history of charming and bedeviling authors, journalists and academics. It’s the black licorice of dashes: Those who like it love it; those who don’t will loudly and repeatedly let you know. But the emergence of a third faction — those who have suspicions of the em dash — puts a new spotlight on one of punctuation’s perennial hot topics.
Conjecture about ChatGPT’s apparent addiction to the em dash has been percolating online for months. Posts in Reddit’s r/ChatGPT ask, “Has anyone noticed how ChatGPT tends to use em dashes frequently?” and “Is an em dash (—) proof of AI manipulation?” OpenAI’s developer community debates the “em dash habit” of its flagship product. Second and third-hand stories about professors accusing well-punctuated assignments of AI assistance spread like urban legends.
