In LaTeX:

- A single hyphen designates ... a hyphen.

- A doubled hyphen designates an en dash.

- A tripled hyphen designates an em dash.

<https://ladedu.com/how-to-use-en-dash-and-em-dash-in-latex/>

(I'm not aware of longer dashes native to LaTeX, though I believe doubled en or em dashes are occasionally used.)

Many Markdown flavours incorporate this, such that en / em dash usage in Markdown-authored docs should not be entirely unexpected. I believe many LLMs output Markdown which is subsequently rendered, based on watching intermediate outputs and saved sessions. I tend to adopt LaTeX / Markdown semantics elsewhere.