Everyone Knows You're Using AI: Part 1

#ai #writing #hottake #llm

This is the first part of a series about AI and the content we put on the internet — including my own writing.

The Em-Dash Incident

So I was writing an email the other day to my co-worker. Used Claude to draft it. And then I noticed it — the em-dashes. Like, a lot of them.

And my brain went: "What if they notice? What if they think I didn't write this myself?"

So I started manually replacing them. One by one. Like some kind of punctuation criminal covering his tracks.

And then I stopped. Because honestly? This is ridiculous XD.

Here's the thing —

I knew what I wanted to say. I gave the context. I shaped the message. AI just... typed it out faster than I could. That's it.

If I asked an assistant to write this email for me and they typed it up, would that make it less "mine"? If I used Grammarly to fix my grammar, is that cheating? Where exactly is the line here?

"But Arun, AI is different. It's generating content, not just fixing typos."

Sure. But the idea was still mine. The rough draft in my head? Mine. The context, the intent, the "make it sound professional but not too formal"? All mine.

AI just... vibed with it.

The em-dash detectives

Here's something I realized — I don't remember learning about em-dashes in school. Do you? Commas, periods, semicolons — sure. But em-dashes? That wasn't in the curriculum lol.

So when people say "I can always tell when something is AI-written because of the em-dashes," what they're really saying is: "I noticed a punctuation mark I don't normally use."

But here's the real question — does it even matter anymore?

It's 2026. Almost everyone uses AI in some form. At first, sure, it felt like cheating. But now? Who actually cares, as long as the idea is solid and the knowledge is shared properly?

If you're the kind of person who rejects an idea just because AI helped write it — the problem isn't the writer. It's not the AI. It's you.

You're the same person who reads a well-researched post, refuses to believe it, then opens ChatGPT and asks "is this true?"

duh

My actual take

If you're a writer or content creator who takes pride in writing everything yourself — respect. Seriously. This post isn't calling you out.

But for the rest of us who just need to get stuff done?

I'm not saying blindly copy-paste whatever Claude spits out and hit send. Please don't do that.

Read it. Make sure it sounds like you. Make sure you understand what you're putting out. Because you don't want to publish something and then not be able to defend it or explain it. That's embarrassing.

But if you're using AI to help you write faster, organize your thoughts, or just get past the blank page? That's just being smart. These days, almost everything you read online has AI somewhere in the pipeline. That blog post, that tweet, that newsletter, that documentation. All of it.

The idea is yours. The thought is yours. AI is just a tool that types faster than you.

If you're embarrassed about that, ask yourself why.

Okay but what actually is an em-dash?

Since we're here, let's actually learn this. Consider it a bonus xD

An em-dash (—) is a punctuation mark that's roughly the width of the letter "M" (that's where the name comes from). It's used to:

Create a pause or break — stronger than a comma, less formal than a colon
Add emphasis or interruption — like this — in the middle of a sentence
Replace parentheses — when you want the aside to feel more connected to the sentence

There's also an en-dash (–) which is shorter (width of "N") and mostly used for ranges like "2020–2025" or "pages 10–15". Different thing.

And then there's the hyphen (-) — the one you actually have on your keyboard. That's just for compound words like "well-known", "self-aware", or even "em-dash" itself. Shortest of the three.

Why does AI use em-dashes so much?

Because em-dashes are technically correct for a lot of situations where we'd normally just use commas or parentheses. AI models learned from well-edited text — books, articles, professional writing — where em-dashes are common. Most of us learned to write from texting and social media, where nobody uses them.

So AI isn't wrong. We're just... casual lol.

This is from Crime and Punishment. Four em-dashes in three lines. Dostoevsky was doing this before it was cool — or before AI made it suspicious.

Fun fact: How do you even type an em-dash?

There's no em-dash key on your keyboard. On Mac, you press Option + Shift + -. On Windows? You need to type Alt + 0151 on the numpad. Or just type -- in Word and hope it auto-converts. No wonder nobody uses them manually.

Anyways, end of the day, people will just ask the same AI that wrote the content to remove the em-dashes. "Remove em-dashes and give the final copy." The irony.

Pro tip: If em-dashes really bother you, most AI providers now have memory systems or customizable system prompts. Just add "never use em-dashes" to your preferences and you're done. Problem solved.