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My spidey sense is tingling with this post. If someone was really scared that their text would be assumed to be AI, why wouldnt you at least stop using the obvi

My spidey sense is tingling with this post. If someone was really scared that their text would be assumed to be AI, why wouldnt you at least stop using the obvious AI-sign, i.e. the long dashes? Does the meaning of the text really change that much that you MUST use — instead of - ? Also: * No dashes before the 'its not vibe coding post' (or very rare), afterwards lots of dashes. * All pixel art images are AI generated.

deleted 1mo ago
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JoshTriplett 1mo ago
> why wouldnt you at least stop using the obvious AI-sign, i.e. the long dashes Em-dashes have a long literary history, which is where AI got them from, and they're genuinely useful in writing. We shouldn't let LLMs ruin that for us in literature. The fact that they've historically been less common in online writing is in part because of deficiencies in input systems, though they're easy enough to type with a compose key or similar, or a typesetting system that interprets `---` as `—`.
- jonesy827 1mo ago
  Relevant -- https://psychotechnology.substack.com/p/em-dashes-are-fucking-amazing https://psychotechnology.substack.com/p/em-dashes-are-fuckin...
- vunderba 1mo ago
  I agree but it feels like a bit of a losing battle at this point, and I can't help but be reminded of the history of the Sanskrit swastika.
- legacynl 1mo ago
  That might be true. And for pedantic literary critics and writers, it might be very important to use the proper length dash. For anybody else, the difference between the long dash, the longer dash, or the normal dash, is almost invisible and meaningless. > We shouldn't let LLMs ruin that for us in literature. First off all, this is a blog post, not literature. Second of all, the cat is already out of the bag on that one. People already associate it with LLMs, no blogpost is going to change that.
saaaaaam 1mo ago
It wasn’t the em-dashed that sent my spirit sense tingling. It was all the obvious AI tics and tropes. But maybe it’s satirical.
- _dwt 1mo ago
  I wondered the same but after running some previous entries through Pangram (and giving them the ol' Mark I Eyeball), I don't think this is satirical. How annoyingly ironic.
vunderba 1mo ago
Yeah, the images [1] used here are clearly the result of someone prompting a generative AI model to make "pixel art". You can tell because they suffer from the same issues all AI-generated pixel art has: no consistent square-pixel grid alignment, fuzzy edges, etc. No shade but it feels slightly Michael Scott-level of self-awareness on a post all about securing one's artistic integrity. [1] - https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/191463/2026/courtroom-scene-novelist.png https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/191463/2026/courtroom-scene-n...

deleted 1mo ago

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JoshTriplett 1mo ago

> why wouldnt you at least stop using the obvious AI-sign, i.e. the long dashes Em-dashes have a long literary history, which is where AI got them from, and they're genuinely useful in writing. We shouldn't let LLMs ruin that for us in literature. The fact that they've historically been less common in online writing is in part because of deficiencies in input systems, though they're easy enough to type with a compose key or similar, or a typesetting system that interprets `---` as `—`.

jonesy827 1mo ago
Relevant -- https://psychotechnology.substack.com/p/em-dashes-are-fucking-amazing https://psychotechnology.substack.com/p/em-dashes-are-fuckin...
vunderba 1mo ago
I agree but it feels like a bit of a losing battle at this point, and I can't help but be reminded of the history of the Sanskrit swastika.
legacynl 1mo ago
That might be true. And for pedantic literary critics and writers, it might be very important to use the proper length dash. For anybody else, the difference between the long dash, the longer dash, or the normal dash, is almost invisible and meaningless. > We shouldn't let LLMs ruin that for us in literature. First off all, this is a blog post, not literature. Second of all, the cat is already out of the bag on that one. People already associate it with LLMs, no blogpost is going to change that.

saaaaaam 1mo ago

It wasn’t the em-dashed that sent my spirit sense tingling. It was all the obvious AI tics and tropes. But maybe it’s satirical.

_dwt 1mo ago
I wondered the same but after running some previous entries through Pangram (and giving them the ol' Mark I Eyeball), I don't think this is satirical. How annoyingly ironic.

vunderba 1mo ago

Yeah, the images [1] used here are clearly the result of someone prompting a generative AI model to make "pixel art". You can tell because they suffer from the same issues all AI-generated pixel art has: no consistent square-pixel grid alignment, fuzzy edges, etc. No shade but it feels slightly Michael Scott-level of self-awareness on a post all about securing one's artistic integrity. [1] - https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/191463/2026/courtroom-scene-novelist.png https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/191463/2026/courtroom-scene-n...