Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
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“Did you just use AI to write that response?”
The comment popped up in a LinkedIn notification. It was directed at me. I had responded to an editor’s post lamenting the increasingly blurry line between human-generated content and AI-generated content. What’s real? What is just the robots come to take over our minds, then the world?
“It’s scary and disheartening,” I had written. “I am deeply frustrated, enraged and saddened about exactly this — not just the"
Stop right there. That’s what did it. The em-dash.
“Did you know that em-dashes are a giveaway sign that someone is using AI to write?” the commenter replied. “If you used AI to write your response, that’s hilarious.”
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 Brontë sisters. Now recognized the world over as a sure sign of AI-generated writing.
It’s a travesty.
I’m not here to just write about the em-dash, but let’s 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.
As a professional writer, it makes my head spin. But more than that, it makes my heart ache.
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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.
All those hours, days, months, years and decades of reading, writing, learning, refining, growing. Thinking. My entire life’s work. Reduced to one simple but devastating accusation: Did you use AI to write that?
No. No, I did not. (Just so we’re all on the same page.)
But it’s true that everywhere you look, there it is. Snappy, rhetorical, overly confident yet mind-numbingly vague AI-generated writing. It’s 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.
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’s not too bad, either. It gets the job done, gets the message across.
But what are we giving up?
I fear we’ve handed our uniquely human ability to think over to the powers that be. We’ve gazed upon millennia of courageous, moving, era-defining human thought and expression and said: AI can do it faster.
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, “everything,” what are we left with?
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We already know some of the consequences, even though it’s still early days. Studies are showing that people who rely heavily on AI tools, especially for writing, have reduced critical thinking skills. It’s been suggested that widespread AI use risks “cognitive atrophy.” In scientific terms, that means our brains could turn to mush.
But despite what we already know, I worry that a growing chorus of voices is saying: Who cares?
We may be losing the plot. Or has the plot lost us?
You may think I sound like a dinosaur, desperately grasping onto the dying embers of the world I once knew. (I’m a millennial! I may be getting older, but I’m not that old! Am I? That’s a crisis for another day.)
I’m 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’re using AI and the parts of ourselves we’re giving up for the sake of speed and efficiency.
A little more protective of what makes us fundamentally human.
After all, we got here – this incredible time of advanced technology, for better or for worse – by using our amazing brains. Let’s not let it become our brains. Because then what will become of us?
For my part, I’m going to continue using the em-dash. I may be able to tell AI what to do, but it can’t tell me what to do – yet.
Emily Dontsos lives in Toronto.