ARE WE BECOMING ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT?
Words by Kaila Hu
The em dash (—), known as the “Swiss Army knife” of grammar, is widely considered the most versatile punctuation mark. You can use it for pretty much anything—replacing colons for emphasis or semicolons to connect ideas—and it adds a bit of flair to everything it touches. Its flexibility is also why it’s been unfairly targeted by artificial intelligence detectors—but many writers have always leaned on em dashes to express themselves.
I used em dashes before everyone started saying they were AI,” Syracuse University journalism professor and published author Seth Gitner said. “Now, when I use them, people think I’m using ChatGPT when I’m actually writing. When I was writing my textbook, my editor said I used em dashes too much, like it looked like it was spit out of ChatGPT.”
The em dash has become increasingly associated with AI writing, despite many people— us at Jerk included—already using it. We’re just saying, if you didn’t know how to use an em dash before ChatGPT hit the scene, maybe AI shouldn’t be writing for you.
But what if some of us actually write like that? After all, ChatGPT can only generate ideas by using what already exists. And what was already there before ChatGPT is human expression. Using certain punctuation marks or actually being somewhat articulate shouldn’t be enough to get your essay flagged for being “AI-generated.”
Alexandra Milchovich, a senior majoring in English and textual studies and communication and rhetorical studies, believes that the increased use of AI for writing is a prime example of the erosion of critical thinking in this day and age.
“I definitely think AI is dumbing people down, but this also comes from academic stress and pressure to perform well, rather than actually wanting to learn and grow through education,” Milchovich said. “AI is definitely gonna have an impact on literacy rates, and I think that using ChatGPT for humanities is just another way to propagandize us into being complacent.”
Simple punctuation like the em dash shouldn’t be conquered by these new AI tools. Instead, students should focus on reading books and exploring the styles of other writers, rather than further plummeting literacy rates.
“When you read great writers, you naturally begin to emulate them and take what you appreciate from their words into your own,” Milchovich said. “My majors both deal heavily with reading and writing, and any long-form content is better than an 11-second AI slop video.”
She recommends slowly reintroducing reading into your life to help redevelop your attention span and cut reliance on AI when writing.
Some students have even begun writing more casually or making “careless” mistakes just to prove their work is human. Researchers at Stanford University found that AI detectors flagged over 61% of genuine essays by non-native English speakers as AI-generated.
Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, worries have grown that it’s stripping away creativity and expression. Its generated sentences are way too polished and take away the distinctiveness and flaws that make personal writing styles recognizable and unique.
Gitner, however, doesn’t see AI as a bad thing when it comes to writing. In fact, he said he encourages his students to use it as a tool in everyday life.
What I usually do is just write down everything that I want to say, and then I have [AI] fix it up,” he said. “But I have to read it after. You can’t just not read it.”
He claimed that when used this way, AI isn’t really replacing writing, but instead helping to refine it
“I actually think that it pushes you to be a better writer,” he said. “I sent an email to some colleagues. Someone wrote back, ‘Good job with your AI letter,’ making fun of me. But it teaches you how to write better prompts. How to have a different way of thinking and creating.”
While AI can be useful for many everyday tasks
and assignments when used properly, being too
reliant on these tools can take away from human
creativity, individuality and even reduce critical
thinking skills.
One study reported by The Atlantic found that after reading chatbot-generated responses to a survey, people's answers became longer, more in-depth and polished. They stopped expressing their thoughts as their own and instead tried to match the AI, almost as if they were the ones thinking artificially.
Personal writing styles and proper grammar shouldn’t be taken away just because of some AI bot. We shouldn’t have to dumb ourselves down to prove we’re human, and certainly shouldn’t be trying to “match the AI” or speak in a way that isn’t truly us.
We want our em dash back.
Brad Gorham is the former head administrator of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications’ infamous Grammar Competency Test. After seeing thousands of students cram to remember the parts of speech they learned in middle school, Gorham understands that being a good writer doesn’t—and shouldn’t— happen overnight.
“Writing is hard to begin with, and you get better with more experience working through the difficulty of writing,” Gorham said. “AI tools don’t train you to be a better writer because they take the hard work out of it.”
Gorham also shared that the use of these generative tools takes away the conversational aspect of writing, saying that we would all be better off if people focused on making their writing clear and expressive, rather than trying to impress others with their vocabulary.
So, reclaim the em dash. Write however you want—and don’t let the threat of artificial intelligence dim your sparkle.