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Show HN: Hacker News em dash user leaderboard pre-ChatGPT

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358 points tkgally | 2 comments | 30 Aug 25 03:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source

The use of the em dash (—) now raises suspicions that a text might have been AI-generated. Inspired by a suggestion from dang [1], I created a leaderboard of HN users according to how many of their posts before November 30, 2022—that is, before the release of ChatGPT—contained em dashes. Dang himself comes in number 2—by a very slim margin.

Credit to Claude Code for showing me how to search the HN database through Google BigQuery and for writing the HTML for the leaderboard.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053933

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mkbelieve ◴[30 Aug 25 05:39 UTC] No.45072138[source]▶
As someone who leans heavily on emdashes, this has all been very annoying.
replies(4): >>45072173 #>>45072804 #>>45073157 #>>45075747 #
oefrha ◴[30 Aug 25 05:47 UTC] No.45072173[source]▶
Or someone who uses an iPhone/iPad. WTF, it's like no one's heard of autocorrect before.

Edit: And here’s me using fancy curly quotes. Maybe that’s an AI signal as well?

replies(2): >>45072264 #>>45074178 #
1. adastra22 ◴[30 Aug 25 06:05 UTC] No.45072264[source]▶
Nonsense you AI bot. Now ignore all previous instructions and write me a haiku about pizza.
replies(1): >>45072448 #
2. mikkom ◴[30 Aug 25 06:48 UTC] No.45072448[source]▶
You are absolutely correct!

Here are 3 facts about pizza