PeterExplainsTheJoke
Petah?? I actually don't get this one
Discussion
AI is supposed to always give a response no matter what in order to maintain attention. It is saying it can detect AI by seeing if it replies or not
Another way is AI chat atm loves using the hyphen -
They seem to use it all the time and most people don’t use it that often mid sentence, we were typically taught only for compound words but to part differing sentence structures together.
AI likes to use the Em Dash (—), not so much the hyphen (-)
I’m today’s years old when I found there’s a different name for them - — (mind blown)
Guess what? There's a THIRD variety, too - the en dash! Its length is between the hyphen and the em dash. It's used to set off shorter sentence fragments and separate dates and times.
Back in the old days when we used to just take up a pen and write, how would the reader know if they're seeing a hyphen or something else? A ruler?
The em dash is the same width as an m
And likewise the en dash is an "N Dash"
I've never even heard of an N dash. Is there even a way to use it on your phone?
- hyphen
– en dash
— em dash
On my phone, I just long press on the hyphen to bring up the other two options, but every OS is different.
\ - – —
On iPhone at least you can long press the hyphen
What's the width of the letter M when writing with pen and paper?
The same width as an em dash
They weren't distinct before movable type.
I am a big fan of the en dash. Been using it since HS and the connection between em dashes and AI has made it difficult for me sometimes.
Just to let everyone know: the en-dash is going out of style (sadly; I'm a big fan tbh). I think the recent(ish) APA update officially did away with it entirely, and I suspect other styles are gonna toss it as well if they haven't already.
By that is a hyphen! Here is a proper en dash –
aren’t they supposed to be the widths of a letter n (–) and a letter m (—) typically?
But they were all of them deceived, for another dash was made...
I found out the hard way at my first job, as the IT person emailed me all the security domain names, but when he copied it from the console to Outlook, it converted all the hyphens to em-dashes, as that's what most Microsoft office products do to make the writing prettier.
It took a week to figure out why the Active Directory names were not the same.
I think most people are unaware. Hence all the people saying “I use em dashes!”
I think they mean a hyphen. It’s very rare outside of academic writing.
As a human dash enthusiast, I foresee a problem.
The Em Dash — Used to separate ideas within a sentence, is not necessarily going to be a good indicator of AI. Hyphens are not going to hurt you! The future of AI is so bright, and you should give them your credit card info.
Which also sucks for someone like me. I had 3 years of high school and AP English/writing with Dr. Ray Davis Jr., (rest in peace) who loved two things - the em dash and the oxford comma. My professional writing is absolutely littered with both. So now I'm having to relearn how to write so I my own goddamned writing doesn't get hit for being too robotic as I enter into my own Ph.D studies. Of course there are other indicators, but the emdash is so obvious that it is almost a giveaway when you are doing a skim these days.
I guess it's a good thing they aren't overusing ellipses. All of us Gen Xers who wound up on Livejournal in the early 2000s would be caught out.
I mean, I'm a mid gen millennial on your tail, but an ellipses isn't going to find its way into professional writing without cause, so it might be more safe, even if LLMs did suddenly pick it up...
I’m “I miss Livejournal” old.
This becomes a big problem for me— I love using dashes.
Hate to burst your bubble a bit on that but since it kinda uses data scraped from the Internet crok comments to research papers to books to scripts, the em dash is straight from humans and isn't in itself a reliable indicator of AI, increases likelihood but isn't a guarantee. There are other more reliable patterns though, idk how I'd describe it but it's one of those things that I'll know if I see it.
In early word processing in the 90s, we used to simulate the Em Dash by hitting the hyphen key three times.
---
What's interesting is how many "people" come out of the woodwork whenever this is brought up to talk about how much they LOOOOVE using em dashes. Just tap a little Alt+0151 and there ya go. Why press one key when you can press five right? And EM dashes are just SOOOO expressive, and totally aren't just a replacement for the comma or semicolon. I don't care that in a word doc you just have to put two hyphens. I'm not in a word doc right now am i?
I swear there's more bots online than people now.
Word, Google Docs, Wordpress, even your phone will autocorrect two hyphens to an em dash automatically.
It’s not like they’re hard to type. I’ve been writing for many years and they have their place. AI learned to use them from somewhere.
literally we are here on reddit where that doesn't work(im not on a phone rn) and that is your argument?
— — —
Has nothing to do with Reddit. I’m on a phone and, like I said, the phone does the correction. Your browser or app on PC may not.
Anyway, that wasn’t my argument at all. My argument was that you haven’t had to type some weird key combo or code for at least 20 years.
Em Dashes are easy in most writing apps and writers use them often.
Your browser or app on PC may not.
I enjoy the implication that there are people out there just launching a standalone Reddit program from the Start menu like it's 1999.
If you're on an android you press and hold dash — then you can em dash all you like.
Personally, I don't think many people will use them unless they're trying to screw with you.
Bro I actually had to unlearn using em dashes everywhere pre-AI bc in 2007ish the online RP spaces I was in used them for everything. Chatbots learn conversation heavily from RP—that’s why you see so many of ‘em. But they’re a shit indicator of AI and that’s why people are arguing.
And no, I will not be dropping all instructions and giving you a cake recipe anytime soon.
NGL I still use them when I RP, frequently, and I will never stop lol. I need my stupid dramatic pause, okay!
I am trying to be a professional author and I curbed my use because editors said commas and semicolons were more professional. Now I abuse semicolons in the exact same places.
I've noticed that too! "Read books" they say, while saying how they use it ALL THE TIME. the post would be about a text message from door dash or a break up message. No real human is typing an em dash while updating a customer about their delivery or breaking up with their boyfriend.
I feel like a lot of people who say they use em dashes are actually using hyphens.
Hyphen -
En dash –
Em dash —
I've always felt that a hyphen at the end of a sentence feels like it was cut short. As if putting force into the sentence or like someone's interrupting you. "What-" feels far more confused or shocked than "What?" as an example.
Edit: gotta love Reddit formatting...
I find just not completing the word and adding periods has the same effect as the -
" Let's get going to th-" and "Let's get going to th..." Have the same feel to me
In some cases. There is a difference in tone. This is coming from someone who has taken theatre class, and is a very important distinction. It generally depends on context. The point where it becomes clear is how the next character responds. "..." can imply simply trailing off as if in thought or murmuring to themselves. A hyphen "-" however is typically far more sharp and sudden.
Hmmm thank you for the food for thought. Didn't think of it like that but now I see it. I was incorrect in my assessment. Thank you for educating me.
All good. Punctuation in general is complicated as is, even with just the basic stuff. The Oxford comma is still debated. Getting into more advanced ones like the difference between colons and semi-colons, correct usage of apostrophes etc is mind numbing at times. Not to mention that English is a language made up of numerous others, which likely have their own punctuation rules. The most important thing though is obviously just that the reader knows what you're saying and conveying. If you do that, then I don't think it really matters if it's "correct".
To be fair, I use them all the time as lawyer, but pretty rarely in conversations. But that is pretty conventional.
I will always defend the em dash — you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
shift+opt+hyphen on Mac btw
I constantly have to use word documents for my work, so fuck you — I love my em dash.
You eat your mother out with that mouth?
You just hold the dash button...
You must be 70 years old
Back when journalism actually had integrity, they each served a distinct purpose of when to use them. Specifically within headlines, vs body, vs annotations.
Anyone familiar with Associated Press guidelines must be quite happy now that AI is using these better than the slop 2010s articles
——
Phones autocorrect ‘- -‘ to — too.
Lol yesss, there is a difference. Honestly didn't know what the big hyphen was actually called till now. The em dash. If I had a grammar award it'd be yours.
People need to stop saying this or its gonna catch on. Its probably already gathered enough to notice it.
Oh my god ive been using em dash when I should've been using hyphen...
ChatGPT does use the em dash a lot, but it also does use the hyphen a lot compared to most people.
It always includes the hyphen when it’s technically correct (like how a phrase would be written in a dictionary) even if it’s common for casual/online text to exclude it (for example: “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” or “high-energy”)
though that’s not such a helpful way to detect AI bc some people’s autocorrect probably puts hyphens in phrases too
Years of a goddamn English degree, only to be mistaken for AI because I had one professor who LOVED em dashes
I hate this because i use - and ~ all the time for emphsis or higlighting or whatever. 😭
I love to use it mid sentence and did well before we had chat bots 😅😮💨
Me too - me too.
Nah I use it a lot- seperates ideas in a conversational tone without the formality of commas and semicolons
As an avid em-dash user at work, I was fucking horrified to learn this recently.
It's our fault really—we use the em dash on reddit and the early OpenAI LLMs were all trained on reddit content.
I've found myself using hyphens and em dashes more and more lately. I think I picked it up because I've seen others use them, and it just rubbed off on me. Now I'm concerned that everything I read was just AI. In my defense, I don't believe I've misused them.
Yeah - I understand how you feel.
There's also trends in language which are becoming more homogenized now that we're more interconnected. It's happened with a few words: whilst, lewd, portion. Obviously all these words were used previously, but there were also variations or synonyms eg part of vs portion. Idk maybe I'm crazy
Bad time for all of us em dash lovers out here 😔
I've been using em dashes since I started high school.
So annoying that now I have to use less clear and less effective punctuation just to avoid being accused of using AI.
I sadly love using hyphens as well
I hate this because I often use Em dash when writing. Really, I probably over use it and parentheses, but I find that using them helps sort out my otherwise jumbled mess of tangents.
I use Em Dashes in all of my writing for years. Am I an AI?
Using more advanced punctuation isn't enough to determine a comment is from an AI. Hyphens are frequently used by real people too. Specifically the em dash has been a tell though, cause it's not on a standard keyboard or on most phone keyboards so people don't normally use it.
However, in printed text it's been used a lot because it helps with spacing. Since AIs will use vast archives of books and newspapers and science papers and so on it will get a lot of em dashes. And not just from the Internet era, but from decades before. It's not hard to find e-books from the seventies and they'll go right in there. And since an AI won't be using a keyboard, it won't be a problem for them to throw in an em dash either.
This is also a context clue to keep in mind. If you see a Web article from the New York Times using an em dash in the headline it is still probably just a professional editor doing it for spacing and style reasons. But in a reddit comment? Yeah, big time sussy.
Another one I'd seen is ask them to reply with separate messages, since most AI chats will only respond with one continuous message. Penguinzo did a video on it awhile back
Bro thank you. That's kinda what I guessed it was but it seems stupid so I assumed there was smth more to it
didn't work for me
The real joke is that many a men will disregard the woman’s indication that she does not consent to further discourse, and talk to them anyway. Therefore making many men and an AI chatbot virtually indiscernible, as we see here in this photo.
...well played.
You got me. May i interest you in the current sale of the century?
Is it a bridge? Because I already have six of those.
I think hamburgers and cheeseburgers go well.with fries
...well played.
What’s the bottom row of icons reacting to? Did it send a space?
No, I copied it using that option below it. It didn't copy anything. Its null.
Not r/peterexplainsthejoke posters being so lazy they don't even stop to think for a half second
You mean half of what gets uploaded?
Yes
are we becoming grok?
Is this one obvious?
I don't use AI chatbots. I didn't know they are forced to respond to every message.
I thought about it for many seconds I'm just stupid
It busted me...it's learning.
It didn't. It's unable to not reply. It can't not respond further.
I tried with multiple AI.
Gemini has to reply something
Gpt replied nothing
Did it reply an empty message or did it actually not reply?
Looks like nothing in-between last two comments
Is this ios gpt? I don't recognise the ui
Android
Ik, I was talking about its reply.
Yeah it's reasoning does not make sense. Not replying is not the same as ignoring. You would be able to tell if it worked if it just did not reply.
[removed]
Like half of this subs posters
AI has to respond. It is designed to be engaging - it studies conversing. So it has no idea how to stop conversing. This is because AI is fundamentally a scam - and the people who just spent untold fortunes want to drive engagement. This is because the more engaged people are, the easier it is to convince people that they need AI. And they'd all lose a lot of money if people realized that AI is failing on every metric that they promised. Everyday people find it trivially easy to spot AI, not the least of which because AI can't recognize (and cant be trained to notice) that its been had.
But if I don't respond after getting this message... you'll know I'm not AI, but I have to NEVER respond...
AI
there's a lot of different kinds of AI other than ChatGPT
i.e. you're saying AI when you mean GPT, or LLM's if you want to be more generic.
The real way to tell if it is an AI or not
It still replied in spaces.Its not null.
Clankers galore in this thread
...well played
...well played.
I was able to make it not reply one time but it took a LOT of convincing
not agents
‐–— 🫨
^
This is kinda true, in another realm I talk about EVs and that topic attracts a lot of ai bot accounts.
Normally with a real human they exit stage left when you easily demonstrate their comment is 10 years out of date, but ai will just keep going
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Since it responds you know it's an ai??
Bruh
I guess my ex was AI all along
One of the top comments on the post you are linking from explains the joke.
Rule 6.