The notion that em dashes (— not -) are a tell for AI-generated text is a common misconception although it could probably be argued that LLMs in their infancy have had a marked propensity to use them with greater frequency than the majority of human writers.
As large language models have evolved and iterated to allow for tonal and cadence changes based on user prompts, these can be eliminated to accommodate different writing styles so I'd argue that as an indicator, their significance is overblown.
I came across Am Dash this week and while I'm not sure I'd go so far as to claim that we are entrenched in some form of holy war, there is a volume of functional copywriting that AI is definitely consuming or perhaps rendering as 'good enough'. It's an interesting accent of resistance to signify human craft skill.
I wonder if the notion of 'Made by Humans' will transform the cloying whimsy and saccharine sweet humanising elements of the Live, Laugh, Love variety beloved of niche agencies into a genuine imprimatur of quality.
Do I care that AI wrote an SEO friendly excerpt for my post? Not really. Did you notice? Probably not.
