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Creative Bloq
Creative Bloq
Technology
Tom May

Why are we punishing authors for illustrations they had nothing to do with?

Stephanie Johnson
A composite image features the cover of "Angel Train: Four Novellas" by Elizabeth Smither on the left and the cover of "Obligate Carnivore and other stories" by Stephanie Johnson on the right, flanking the logo for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in the centre.

It's fair to say that AI has been the big disruptor of 2025. And illustrators have been at the sharp end of things, to say the least. But I'm worried that innocent creatives are starting to get caught in the backlash.

Right now, my LinkedIn is full of writers who've been accused of using AI because (and I'm not making this up) they've used em dashes. The popular idea behind this is that em dashes are an AI "tell" because they are common in the responses given by chatbots like ChatGPT. 

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