358 points tkgally | 1 comments | 30 Aug 25 03:40 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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.
Even more interesting is the likely increase in emdash usage by those not using an LLM, but merely imitating the writing they see subconsciously. There was a evidence that chatgpt is shifting the frequency of use of some uncommon words and phrases amongst non-users.