AI & the Em dash

In the age of AI, the em dash (—) has been unfairly stigmatized. Once valued as a graceful way to signal a break in thought, it is now dismissed as a telltale sign of machine writing. So strong is this association that people even instruct AI tools not to use it.

This misses the point. The em dash is not an “AI tell” but a design choice—an elegant alternative to commas or parentheses that clarifies rhythm and emphasis. Its prevalence in AI output is not evidence of artificiality, but of the fact that AI was trained on high-quality writing, where the em dash is used correctly and effectively.

The real problem lies not with punctuation, but with flawed AI detection. Because these tools are unreliable, people fall back on shallow markers. The em dash—less common in casual writing—has become a convenient scapegoat. But design has never been about suspicion; it has always been about clarity.

I sometimes let AI refine my drafts—why wouldn’t I use a tool that sharpens expression? But my use of the em dash is not proof of “AI slop.” It’s a typographic preference, a way of respecting the rhythm of language and making prose more precise—for me, it isn’t a scarlet letter but a badge of good typography.