alt Hacker NewsHonest question: was an LLM involved in writing this comment? The em-dash style stood out to me
Replies
dkga • yesterday at 11:03 AM
Human user of em dashes here. I can't tell you the number of times people thought my 100% human-made prose was "AI" because of the em dashes.
dang • yesterday at 6:24 PM
Show HN: Hacker News em dash user leaderboard pre-ChatGPT - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45071722 - Aug 2025 (266 comments)
+ honorary mentions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053933 (Aug 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27787448 (July 2021)
> Honest question: was an LLM involved in writing this comment? The em-dash style stood out to me
The use of em dashes looks pretty natural to me. This is how they were used before LLMs, and what LLMs learned from.
Em dashes have a useful place in written language. I hope we will not lose their utility because people treat them as enough of a signal on their own to automatically question the authenticity of absolutely well-written pieces of text, without giving the matter any further consideration.