I’d like to report a crime. AI has murdered the em dash!

Anyone who has ever used ChatGPT or one of its peers has probably been warned that the em dash is definitive proof you used AI. So, the world over, well-meaning folks have been killing off (well, deleting) this honorable member of the punctuation family.

Fans and frequent users of the em dash, like yours truly, are bereft. If we use this small-but-mighty tool in our writing, people will think we used AI to author our work and will stare down their noses at us in haughty derision. So, we are forced to turn our backs on a device that has been punctuating the English language at least since the 1900s when it was officially recognized as a specific typographic character and style guides began to reference it. 

Now what do we do when we need to set something off for emphasis or want the reader to pause before moving forward? I love a good comma, colon, or set of parentheses as much as any other punctuation fanatic, but sometimes you need something with more pizzazz.

As I contemplated this injustice against the written word, I began to wonder if there are other devices I use in my writing that will make people think that I used AI when, in fact, I had not. Turns out there are. A lot.

Apparently, every time I use phrases like mission-aligned, wraparound supports, capacity-building initiatives, robust framework, and future-focused, I am using AI dead giveaways. And there are so many more.

I was starting to become panicky about all of this when I remembered something very important. AI learns from us, from our writing. It is not creating new turns of phrases or styles of prose. It is mimicking us. So, if it is using words, phrases, and styles we use all the time it is because we taught it to do so. AI is copying us.

When the telephone first hit the scene people thought it was an intrusive and unnatural form of communication that couldn’t be trusted in business and would destroy face-to-face interaction. Can you imagine life without it today?

AI is here to stay, and, like any other human advancement, there are ethical ways to use it and there are shady ways. I certainly wouldn’t have it write a novel and claim that it was 100% me, but I have used it to draft emails and talking points for presentations. I even used it today to give me an algebraic formula for a calculation I needed to make that I was certain could be done easier than counting on my fingers and toes. 

Using it to make you more efficient, with honesty and transparency, is not just okay but is wise in this rapidly-changing landscape (a phrase that is an AI dead giveaway according to ChatGPT).

I will leave you with this. Though I did not use AI to write or edit this post, when I asked it to  evaluate its likely authorship, it said it was 61.23% sure a human wrote it. Wow! That leaves a lot of room for argument. Apparently, I write in a style that is similar to the bots—or I am one.