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New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

marginalia.nu

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

#501

Post by dailyanchovy »

RobRivera wrote: post #173
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…

Every single time I read the phrase 'I have been thinking about this a lot lately' my eyeballs roll back hard.

Yes, and “genuine question” or “am i missing something?”

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

#502

Post by pksebben »

pluc wrote: post #494
marssaxman wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My teenager recently asked me why I write like a chatbot, apparently unaware that some human beings prefer to write in complete sentences with attention to details like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization, and that LLMs were trained on this sort of writing. This makes me think of the fad where people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame, because it somehow connotes authenticity. I'm sure some…

Idiocracy called this "talking like a fag".

"Yeah so it says on your chart here..."

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

#503

Post by dom96 »

MaKey wrote: post #498
dom96 wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It adds enough of a barrier to be worth it. In the way I have implemented it, you can only have one account per ID (for example passport). Yes, you can buy fake passports, but it's prohibitively expensive. Read my blog post for more info.

This is not a technical issue - it's a societal one. Do we want online ID verification? Are the trade-offs worth it? Do we want to make the internet a place that requires an ID everywhere for age verification or to prove that you're human? What would the implications be? Regarding your implementation: Most people don't have a passport, so it's a non-starter - but again, this topic is not a technical issue.

I think that it is a technical issue to a certain extent. Governments could make it very easy to prove humanity (and age) in a secure manner that doesn't leak your personal details to the third party that wants to perform the verification.

I don't see that as "requiring ID".

I think the real question is how much do we care that our online spaces are composed of not just AI bots, but also sock puppet accounts controlled by various people (from governments, rich people, all the way to harassers that use alt accounts) wanting to trick us.

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

#504

Post by SunshineTheCat »

marssaxman wrote: post #301
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…

My teenager recently asked me why I write like a chatbot, apparently unaware that some human beings prefer to write in complete sentences with attention to details like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization, and that LLMs were trained on this sort of writing. This makes me think of the fad where people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame, because it somehow connotes authenticity. I'm sure some…

I recently posted a youtube short of some of my drawings I did on my iPad using Procreate and moving them into Illustrator.

Got several comments saying they were "AI slop."

Even had a screen cap of my drawing process.

Kinda funny to think my drawings, which have likely "trained" AI image generators, are now getting accused of being AI.

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

#506

Post by anotherevan »

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…

> assume I'm an LLM

I've noticed a habit of late of people accusing a comment of being LLM generated if they disagree with it. It was getting quite tiresome a few weeks ago but seems to have died down.

I suppose it is possible that they are actually LLMs making the accusations? :-)

(I'm one of those weirdos that try to use proper grammar and complete sentences in text messages and instant messages.)

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

#508

Post by protocolture »

dom96 wrote: post #472
MaKey wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we’re on the precipice of this being a requirement to have any faith you’re talking to another human. Except that it doesn't prove you're talking to a human - it just increases the hurdles for bot operators (buy or steal verified accounts).

It adds enough of a barrier to be worth it. In the way I have implemented it, you can only have one account per ID (for example passport). Yes, you can buy fake passports, but it's prohibitively expensive. Read my blog post for more info.

I mean, reddit accounts are valued based on the identity they have built. Its not farfetched to imagine uninterested users making and selling a single account each.

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

#509

Post by calf »

cwnyth wrote: post #422
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…

Ex-academic here. I too use/tended to use em-dashes quite a bit. It's easy to compose in Linux (Gnome) with a real keyboard: Ctrl Shift U 2014 is ingrained in my head from using them all the time in my academic work.

As an em-dash abuser I have decided that it is a crutch to not think through what I am saying--I can lazily connect a stream of thoughts rather than think clearly and explicitly form sentence transitions and so on

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

#510

Post by mkprc »

A counter comment: I'll bet many folks didn't know what an em-dash was until the whole "you can tell it's AI because of the em-dashes" thing. Then everyone learned what an em-dash is, and every pause in every sentence thereafter suddenly deserves an em-dash. While I suspect it's mostly bots, the number of sincere (human) new em-dashers isn't negligible.
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