23 ms·
0-days-vibes-vulns? There should be a new category, for spotting and handling the em-dashes of this brave new world of vulns and making the old fossils like me
by doe88 3mo ago
0-days-vibes-vulns? There should be a new category, for spotting and handling the em-dashes of this brave new world of vulns and making the old fossils like me only picking my head up for the old painfully still hand-crafted artisanal ones instead. A kind of label, like free-range for eggs, in sum.
- tyre 3mo agoYes, big pet peeve of the new world. Every em dash is apparently an AI trigger. Back in my day, they were a sign of great respect within my people.
- Barbing 3mo agoI might like to see a collection of pre-2022 em-dash usage—a subset I suppose of the Low Background Steel category (https://lowbackgroundsteel.ai https://lowbackgroundsteel.ai).
- sureMan6 3mo agoYou completely misunderstanding the comment feels like an AI trigger
- rogerrogerr 3mo agoI used to be an em-dash user, but now my opinion is that I’d rather be perceived as someone who does not want to be confused with an LLM. So I’ve changed my writing style.
- jackp96 3mo agoThey're just so handy! I do think LLMs tend to use them in a specific way, though. So maybe tweaking your usage (ex. no spaces around them) or using a technically incorrect en-dash might offer the desired effect while subtly signaling that your message isn't AI-generated. I still use them — mostly for pauses — but I'd like to think my voice sounds distinct enough from an AI that people can tell.
- Syntonicles 3mo agoI for one am striving for clarity and couldn't care less about being confused with AI. However I've only ever used regular dashes. How do you type an em-dash? Is it OS specific? I've taken to using Emacs insert-char with a list of frequently used ones in my scratch buffer. My memory for Unicode is unreliable.
- xp84 3mo agoMacs have a native way to do dashes: option- hyphen for en-dash and option shift hyphen for em-dash. On Windows there are some application-specific ways that make sense, e.g. in Office, but outside that you’re on your own and have to use the “hold alt and type the character codes” method! Or charmap.
- topgrain2 3mo agoKeyboard layout specific. Macs with their default English layout use “option-shift-dash” which is really easy to remember (and relatively discoverable, as such things go) which is why using proper m-dashes (not just double-dashes) used to be a strong indicator a poster was using a Mac, before LLMs took the character over. On iOS you type it by pressing dash and holding until alternative options come up, same way you type e.g. accented characters.
- alexfringes 3mo agoYou can also just type two "-" minuses on iOS. So "--" will auto-convert to "—".
- redwall_hp 3mo agoMacs have two possible ways. If you have key repeat enabled, option+shift+dash. Some newer Mac users may have the mode on where holding a key pops up an iOS-style bubble of alternate options, in which case they will just hold hyphen.
- TylerE 3mo ago
- VectorLock 3mo agoCode switching in the post LLM era.
- Wowfunhappy 3mo agoMy feeling is that my writing doesn't sound anything like an LLM, so if someone thinks I'm an LLM because I used an em-dash, that's on them. That, or I royally screwed up and need to do a better job as a writer. At least with today's LLMs.
- zahlman 3mo ago> if someone thinks I'm an LLM because I used an em-dash, that's on them. I'll go a step further: I think I'd rather actively filter out people whose AI detection is that naïve.
- bogwog 3mo agoThe false positive rate for assuming em-dashers are AI is probably very low right now. I doubt whatever you write is valuable enough to justify the extra time and mental effort of figuring out if something is AI or not. Internet slang like "lol" came from trying to text on those shitty number pads on old cellphones. I expect similar slang will come about in the future from humans trying to prove they're not a dirty clanker. Sacrificing the em-dash is just the beginning of this. Soon, we're all going to be typing without rhythm.
- sysguest 3mo agohmm maybe if we wait longer, LLMs will learnt to be like "none-em-dashers", and we "em-dashers" will prevail?
- wafflemaker 3mo agoEm-dashes and "it's not X. It's Y" seem to be in most LLMs writing style purposefully so they can have detection tools. Just so academia can claim some level of detectability
- tosti 3mo agoThere's also the "paradigm shift" and "a fundamental Z of X". Those really ding my slop'o'meter.
- 998244353 3mo agoI now use "ASCII em-dashes" by using two hyphens -- like this. Or--if you prefer no spaces--like this.
- audreyfei 3mo agosame, or I use a semicolon
- DonHopkins 3mo agoI use a semistoma due to medical reasons.
- SmashDan 3mo agosemi-colon will have me thinking you've typed up your comment in Microsoft Word
- rogerrogerr 3mo agoNah, I’ve started noticing people doing this replacement automatically in LLM output. I just try not to write with dashes anymore.
- 0gs 3mo agothe nn dash remains the goat. the arg dash
- tim-tday 3mo agoDon’t you love when your arg dashes get autocorrected to emdashes? And by love I mean hate with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.
- hamburglar 3mo agoAgreed. On an iPhone that’s the easiest way to type an em dash and consequently the easiest way to fuck up trying to write out a command line example.
- 3mo ago
- brookst 3mo agoIt’s fine to use em-dashes — just be srre to add typos.
- theK 3mo agoWhat is the typical motivation to start using em-dashes? Why go the extra way to have a slightly elongated dash when a normal one would just as well do the job? I might be conpletely off here but I've never seen a situation where using a normal dash where a long one should be causes any sort of syntactic trouble.
- Macha 3mo agoIt looks aesthetically nicer. It was also a bit of a signal that someone took pride in their work and so helped that way. It's a bit like whether your tradesperson cleans up after themselves. Technically sweeping up the dust after installing a kitchen cabinet doesn't actually mean anything for the quality of the kitchen cabinet installation, but in practice putting the effort into the presentation correlates with putting the effort into the actual work.
- theK 3mo agoI understand the sentiment with the tradesman example. I would argue that there are a multitude of ways to care about or take pride in one's trade and emdashing the floor is just one of them.
- derwiki 3mo agoAn emdash means something different than shorter dashes https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/em-dash-en-dash-how-to-use https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/em-dash-en-dash-how-...
- fragmede 3mo agoi mean why use punctuation or any capitals at all, why not just blast words out in a stream of consciousness so readers know how yr thinking why even bother with speeling things write Just because you don't care to use the proper dash doesn't mean everyone else doesn't. People have different levels of caring about different details. For the sticklers, there's even a special code point for ellipsis, … rather than .... (Four being correct, as one is to end the sentence.) Personally I'll just skip — entirely unless I'm in a trolling mood, though “sometimes” the right quotes are worth using. Special characters are easy to type on a phone soft keyboard, taking a long press on the relevant key, or if you're using any other advanced input system, so they shouldn't really be considered to be the mark of LLM input. The real trouble is that people doing engage with the substance of the post anymore, and just shallowly dismiss a post as being vibe written, as if that makes any points raised invalid. Anti-intellectualism's always been cool among a certain crowd. Shame to see it spread but ah well, the propaganda's working.
- DrewADesign 3mo agoI don’t give a flying fuck what people think. Most colleges copied or adopted my (for a few semesters) school’s style guide, so LLMs are essentially copying me, and I won’t change my punctuation usage because they suck.
- rogerrogerr 3mo agoYeah, I get it, they do suck. It all sucks. But people at work who are copying responses from LLMs into emails to others also suck, and I want to distance myself from them as much as possible. I'm kinda hoping we will eventually have a wave of "what the fuck are we paying you for if you're just copying stuff from an LLM to Slack" firings.
- stouset 3mo agoThis is a pointless and infinitely losing arms race. LLMs will learn to use hyphens instead of em dashes, and so what? You’re going to start using em dashes again? Just focus on not producing slop.
- rogerrogerr 3mo agoAt this point, I believe the LLM "style" is on purpose. Perhaps the labs want to be able to distinguish their slop from human content for future training; I don't know. But it feels very deliberate that they've kept the style so consistent for so long.
- fc417fc802 3mo agoI agree. They're voluntarily adding fingerprints to images so I expect the default voice is intentional and it wouldn't surprise me at all (though I have no evidence of this) if the output text has a fingerprint stenographically embedded in it.
- BlaDeKke 3mo agoIn a video of Hank Green, he interviewed an AI expert (if there even is such a thing), and he said that in the thinking part of the conversation, LLMs seems to use code language to communicate with itself, like in the usage and ordering of words, and such. I think that there could be even more then a fingerprint in those messages. It’s this video: https://youtu.be/5CKuiuc5cJM?is=9VQ1FCxY_X3eNm-b https://youtu.be/5CKuiuc5cJM?is=9VQ1FCxY_X3eNm-b Warning: They anthropomorphize a lot in this video, but I get it… the words exist, why not use them.
- DonHopkins 3mo agoI'm a secret invisible ­ soft hypenator. I like to break words in whacky places that change their meaning only when they need to be broken. Like Democ­rats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_hyphen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_hyphen It's a perverted expression of hidden passive aggression.
- sva_ 3mo agoI propose that humans use Unicode U+2E3B three em dash ⸻ it is an impressively long character.
- deadbabe 3mo agolet’s market it as “human dash” And if it ever catches on with LLMs ⸻⸻ we just make it longer
- fragmede 3mo agoJust write —(human)— to denote that a human wrote the dash. Just be sure to instruct your LLM to write —(LLM)— so readers know the difference.
- omoikane 3mo ago> U+2E3B three em dash I had to look up why this exists, and apparently it was added in Unicode 6.1 (2012) because some style guide required it, and using consecutive U+2014 em dashes isn't sufficient because that might not render as one continuous line. https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2010/10037r-longdashes.pdf https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2010/10037r-longdashes.pdf
- mokre 3mo agoLets just use random number of dashes.
- Dumblydorr 3mo agoIt’s so they don’t train on AI data, right?
- nativeit 3mo agoI still use them frequently. On iOS you just tap the hyphen twice, and it inserts an em dash—sorta like that.
- timcobb 3mo agoThe question is whether the m-dashes are surrounded by spaces or not. The spaces are utterly maddening. But yeah, RIP the mdash, who would have thought.
- nonethewiser 3mo agoThe thing is, in lots of contexts you cant easily type em dashes. Google docs will convert “—-“ to an emdash but simple text inputs wont. So when you see one in that context you have to consider the explanation. They copy pasted an em dash specifically, they drafted in Google docs, they know the unicode keyboard shortcut, etc. None of these are safe assumptions. And if it’s markdown you know it wasnt drafted in Google docs.
- eschatology 3mo agoin macos it is trivial to input em dash in any context
- sheept 3mo agoOn Windows and Mac you can input an em dash anywhere with shift+windows+hyphen / shift+option+hyphen, respectively
- cik 3mo agoI'm still waiting for the interrabang to become compromised as well. They've already taken my em dash, and my use of the Oxford command, apparently, is an insant flag.
- wil421 3mo agoHow many college kids are going to be flagged for using an em dash?
- VCFundedGenYer 3mo agoTo me em dashes have always just been an annoyance. For example, Word and OneNote were (and likely still are) very keen on converting every dash to an em-dash by default, and I frequently find myself needing to immediately undo that.
- djmips 3mo agoThose aren't even em-dashes and yet there's a huge thread talking about them.
- jmmcd 3mo agoIt's interesting that Claude also over-uses en-dashes. It's very willing to create compound-noun-phrases, especially in that compressed-summary-paragraph it often writes. The 0-days-vibes-vulns that started this thread looks a lot like that, but it could be Claude directly, or just Claude's style influencing people who spend too much time with it.
- semilin 3mo agoThose are just hyphens, actually. En dashes are for ranges (e.g., 1–4, which is admittedly hard to distinguish from 1-4), not compound words. Point stands though—LLMs do love compound words and dashes in general.
- kordlessagain 3mo ago..."and for the love of God, don't use M dashes when you write it"...input goes on for an hour droning about slop...