{"id":621869,"date":"2026-04-22T21:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/621869\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T21:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:18:09","slug":"ais-theft-of-the-em-dash-isnt-just-disheartening-it-foreshadows-our-downfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/621869\/","title":{"rendered":"AI\u2019s theft of the em-dash isn\u2019t just disheartening \u2013 it foreshadows our downfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash<\/p>\n

First Person<\/a> is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca\/essayguide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you just use AI to write that response?\u201d <\/p>\n

The comment popped up in a LinkedIn notification. It was directed at me. I had responded to an editor\u2019s post lamenting the increasingly blurry line between human-generated content and AI-generated content. What\u2019s real? What is just the robots come to take over our minds, then the world? <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s scary and disheartening,\u201d I had written. \u201cI am deeply frustrated, enraged and saddened about exactly this \u2014 not just the”<\/p>\n

Stop right there. That\u2019s what did it. The em-dash. <\/p>\n

\u201cDid you know that em-dashes are a giveaway sign that someone is using AI to write?\u201d the commenter replied. \u201cIf you used AI to write your response, that\u2019s hilarious.\u201d <\/p>\n

Here we go again. The poor em-dash, a victim of its own usefulness. Employed by generations of writers to offset side-thoughts, to clarify, to make a point. Beloved to the point of excess by the likes of Jane Austen and the Bront\u00eb sisters. Now recognized the world over as a sure sign of AI-generated writing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a travesty. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not here to just write about the em-dash, but let\u2019s make one thing clear: AI uses the em-dash because humans have loved the em-dash for centuries. AI stole the em-dash from humans. Now humans are no longer allowed to use the em-dash for fear of being accused of using AI to write. <\/p>\n

As a professional writer, it makes my head spin. But more than that, it makes my heart ache. <\/p>\n

Opinion: Are we approaching the \u2018Silent Spring\u2019 of artificial intelligence?<\/a><\/p>\n

Like so many writers, I have spent my life studying the art of language. I spent years toiling away, earning not one but two literature degrees. I have built an entire career as a writer and editor, specializing in non-profit communications and dabbling in creative writing on the side. It is both my passion and my livelihood. <\/p>\n

All those hours, days, months, years and decades of reading, writing, learning, refining, growing. Thinking. My entire life\u2019s work. Reduced to one simple but devastating accusation: Did you use AI to write that? <\/p>\n

No. No, I did not. (Just so we\u2019re all on the same page.)<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s true that everywhere you look, there it is. Snappy, rhetorical, overly confident yet mind-numbingly vague AI-generated writing. It\u2019s there in e-mails, on social media, in job applications, in presentations, in blog posts, ads, articles. There are even articles written by AI about how to spot AI-generated writing. <\/p>\n

I get it. AI has made content creation the easiest thing in the world. It empowers many people to communicate in a more polished and confident way. Most of the time, it\u2019s not too bad, either. It gets the job done, gets the message across. <\/p>\n

But what are we giving up?<\/p>\n

I fear we\u2019ve handed our uniquely human ability to think over to the powers that be. We\u2019ve gazed upon millennia of courageous, moving, era-defining human thought and expression and said: AI can do it faster. <\/p>\n

When we lose our ability to think, to truly think for ourselves, to write without the help of a large language model asking what it can do for us today and us telling it, essentially, \u201ceverything,\u201d what are we left with? <\/p>\n

Opinion: The privacy threat that AI poses isn\u2019t what it learns. It\u2019s what it figures out<\/a><\/p>\n

We already know some of the consequences, even though it\u2019s still early days. Studies are showing that people who rely heavily on AI tools, especially for writing, have reduced critical thinking skills. It\u2019s been suggested that widespread AI use risks \u201ccognitive atrophy.\u201d In scientific terms, that means our brains could turn to mush. <\/p>\n

But despite what we already know, I worry that a growing chorus of voices is saying: Who cares?<\/p>\n

We may be losing the plot. Or has the plot lost us? <\/p>\n

You may think I sound like a dinosaur, desperately grasping onto the dying embers of the world I once knew. (I\u2019m a millennial! I may be getting older, but I\u2019m not that old! Am I? That\u2019s a crisis for another day.) <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying we should all shut down our computers and happily make our way to the stacks or the fonds to do our research and formulate our ideas before dipping our fountain pens in our ink bottles to take notes on our parchment paper. But I am saying that we could all stand to be a little more careful with our brains. A little more thoughtful about how we\u2019re using AI and the parts of ourselves we\u2019re giving up for the sake of speed and efficiency.<\/p>\n

A little more protective of what makes us fundamentally human. <\/p>\n

After all, we got here \u2013 this incredible time of advanced technology, for better or for worse \u2013 by using our amazing brains. Let\u2019s not let it become our brains. Because then what will become of us? <\/p>\n

For my part, I\u2019m going to continue using the em-dash. I may be able to tell AI what to do, but it can\u2019t tell me what to do \u2013 yet. <\/p>\n

Emily Dontsos lives in Toronto. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,16049,2922,1398,61],"class_list":["post-621869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-first-person","tag-noastack","tag-nodelphi","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}