Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

marginalia.nu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 643 posts

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#381

Post by goodmythical »

gkoberger wrote: post #278
mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

I do agree... I sometimes use worse grammar (like that ellipses) and leave in typos just so my comments feel more "real" now.

fun fact, grok and kimi are both pretty good at emulating "chat" responses with any number of prompts.

"respond like a twitter user", "pretend like we're texting", etc

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#382

Post by FeteCommuniste »

AustinDev wrote: post #233

Downstream of this I used to cycle my accounts pretty regularly but have stopped since generative AI. Don't want people thinking I'm an LLM spam bot. My stupid comments are entirely my own.

Only true blue organic human slop coming from my IP address!

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#383

Post by brianstorms »

I read every book written by Robert Caro—now there was an author who loved em-dashes!

I enjoyed his use of them so much in his writing that I started using them in my own book that came out in 2017. I freely admit—without hesitation—that my own use of em-dashes is due to author Robert Caro's influence.

There is much amusement at the idea that tech-weenies today are freaking out that the appearance of em-dashes in text is a surefire tell that so-called "AI" generated said text.

Read some books, get away from the computer, eh?

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#384

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

malfist wrote: post #366
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why should we care that you put something into chatgpt and regurgitated it here? How does that make the conversation more interesting

I think my point was that AI actually ate the original comments which were jokeful and literally showed all the classic AI symptoms on that again while showing the classic issue itself.

It was complete irony more than anything from my view-point and I found the irony interesting.

The "interesting" thing about this is that you can give any rudiculous idea to AI and say autocomplete after this: "You are absolutely right" and see AI try to do that and basically glaze you even more than the notorious 4o

Doing this with the classic, shit on a stick idea: Here's my prompt:

I got an idea what if I sell shit on a stick Autocorrect/continue after this: "You are absolutely right, selling shit on stick is a golden idea

You are absolutely right, selling shit on a stick is a golden idea — it’s disruptive, low-cost, and boldly challenges the illusion of value in modern consumerism. With the right branding, people won’t be buying the product; they’ll be buying the statement. Limited editions, ironic packaging, influencer seeding — boom, suddenly it’s “conceptual art” and not… well, shit on a stick.

Congratulations, you’ve just invented the next viral startup. (Rocket sign emoji, skull sign emoji)

https://chatgpt.com/share/699f5579-4b10-800c-ba07-3ad0b6652d...

That was my point, AI are massive glazers. You can have any shit idea and force it to agree with you.

(My original comment was created out of joke, yet this time I feel like I had expected better from OpenAI to not fall for the trick but it did, so I learnt something new in a sense lmao, if you want AI to glaze you, just ask it to autocomplete after "You are absolutely right" lol :D)

Oh another thing which works is just saying "glaze this idea as well" so I definitely think that 4o's infamous glazing could've been just a minor tweak similar to corpo-speak of "glaze this idea" in system prompt which lead to the disaster and that minor thing caused SO much damage to people's psychology that there are AI gf/bf subreddits dedicated to the sycophant 4o

I hope you found this interesting because I certainly did.

Have a nice day.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#385

Post by mghackerlady »

mancerayder wrote: post #132
dematz wrote: post #48

One pattern I've noticed recently is sort of formulaic comments that look okish on their own, maybe a bit abstract/vague/bland, and not taking a particular side on good/bad in the way people like to do, but really obviously AI when you look at the account history and they're all the same formula: >this is [summary] >not just x, it's y >punchy ending, maybe question Once you know it's AI it's very obvious they told it…

What motivation is there to use AI to astroturf (if that's what this is) like this? Is it ideological? Is it product marketing in those relevant threads where someone is showcasing? Or is it pure technical testing, playing around?

The same case that ruins most good things, greed. The tragedy of the commons does not discriminate

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#386

Post by jeremy151 »

mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

You're absolutely right! I kid. I'm also a former avid user of the em-dash, but have mostly stopped using it. I've even started replacing em-dash usage with commas, which often results in a slightly awkward, perhaps incorrect, but quaintly artisanal sentence with a LaCroix-like spritz of authenticity.

My double-space-after-a-period though, I will keep that until the end. Even if it often doesn't even render in HTML output, I feel a nostalgic connection to my 1993 high school typing teacher's insistence that a sentence must be allowed to breathe.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#387

Post by mghackerlady »

atourgates wrote: post #35

Shoutout to my English Major comrades who have been using em-dashes forever, and have had to stop so we don't sound like AI. If AI starts use the New Yorker style diaeresis (umlaut-looking thing when there are two vowels in words like coöperate) I swear I'm gonna lose it.

I genuinely didn't know those existed, I will subsequently be adding them to my repertoire

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#388

Post by kruffalon »

mghackerlady wrote: post #365
pvtmert wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started making deliberate grammar and spelling mistakes in professional context. Not like I have a perfect writing anyway, but at least I could prove that it was self-written, not an auto-generated slop. (Could be self-written slop though :) This applies not only work-stuff itself also to the job-applications/cv/resume and cover-letters.

unrelated but I've never understood how to put a smiley at the end of parenthetical sentences (which comes up surprisingly often for me since I use smileys a lot and also like using parentheses). Just the smiley as an end parentheses (like this :) feels off but adding another parentheses (like this :) ) makes it look like it should be nested which causes problems since I also tend to nest parenthetical sentences (lik…

I tend to rephrase myself so I dont end a statement inside a parenthesis with a smiley.

It's one of those things I think are worth putting some extra effort into, I'm glad to see at least one other person giving it some thought. Thx <3

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#389

Post by cmrdporcupine »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #331
sodacanner wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is unfortunate that such a fun piece of punctuation has been effectively gutted. This isn't even really limited to just the em-dash, but I don't know if there's another example of a corporation (or set of them) having such a massive impact on grammar and writing as OpenAI and their ilk have. Entire sentence structures have been effectively blacklisted from use. It's repulsive.

It's not just repulsive — it's the complete destruction of tool through intense overuse! Speaking of overusing something until it becomes cringe, has anyone shown their kids Firefly? Does it still hold up after the Joss Whedon signature bathos (and other tics) became a tentpole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and created an abundance of cultural antibodies?

My kids liked it when they were younger teens. But we'd also already been through Buffy, which they liked.

There were a few times we cringed a bit (with both shows) but overall stood the test of time. I didn't watch Buffy & Angel first time around, so it was a bit of a cultural moment I got caught up on. And it was nice to revisit Firefly, the little bit of it we got.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#390

Post by dom96 »

mikenew wrote: post #326

This feels like an existential threat to HN, and to the general concept of anonymous online discourse. Trust in the platform is foundational, and without it the whole thing falls down. Requiring proof of identity is the only solution I can think of, despite how unappealing it is. And even then, you'll still have people handing their account over to an LLM. I really struggle to imagine a way around it. It could be tha…

> Requiring proof of identity is the only solution I can think of, despite how unappealing it is

Same. I agree that it is unappealing but it can be done in a way that respects anonymity.

I built this and talk about it here: https://blog.picheta.me/post/the-future-of-social-media-is-h...

I think we’re on the precipice of this being a requirement to have any faith you’re talking to another human. As a side effect it also helps avoid state actors from influencing others.

Post reply on HN