The em dash—caught
in the crossfire.
Yet another person advised me against using an em dash in something I wrote. "People will think AI wrote it." They're not entirely wrong. They're just wrong about what the tell actually is.
AI does overuse the em dash. Not because it was trained on good writing — though it was — but because it's hedge punctuation — a way to bolt two thoughts together without ever explaining how they actually connect. The result is posts with em dashes everywhere and no actual point of view. The punctuation is right. The thinking is absent.
That's the real tell. Not the punctuation. The pattern.
Copy-paste output with no editing, no voice, no perspective. You can smell it because the sentences are smooth exactly where a real person would have been rough. No seam where the writer wrestled with something. Just forward motion, confident and empty.
The question that actually matters
In 2026, "did AI help you write this?" is a useless question. The answer is yes, for almost everyone. The useful question is what that means about the writer.
AI can smooth a sentence. It can't manufacture a perspective you don't have. The tell isn't the em dash. It's whether the thinking is yours.
There are two ways to use these tools. One is to outsource the thinking: feed a topic in, take the output, post it. The result sounds like writing and reads like nothing. The other is to use AI as a force multiplier on thinking you've already done. Sharpening arguments you actually hold. Finding the word that was on the tip of your tongue.
For someone still learning to write, AI can become training wheels that never come off. The output arrives fully formed and the instinct never develops. That's a real cost that won't show up for years.
For those of us who spent years developing a voice before these tools existed, it's different. I use Claude every day — coding, researching, writing. The instinct is already there. Now, it just hits the page faster.
What I've found since going all-in on this: the pressure is higher now, not lower. When the friction of writing disappears, what's left is just the quality of the ideas. AI democratizes output. It doesn't democratize perspective.
The em dash is innocent.
— Chris