AI Writing Detected by Em Dashes and Repetitive Style
Tweets highlight how AI text stands out via em dashes and stiff phrasing.
Product lead Jeff Weinstein retweeted a thread noting AI-generated writing often features em dashes, repetitive phrasing, lack of natural flaws, and overly polished impersonal tone that remains noticeable even after editing. Academic Chhavi Yadav echoed similar frustrations with AI slop in research papers and online content, where it fails to communicate effectively. The discussion underscores growing awareness of these stylistic tells in AI output across professional and academic contexts.
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been thinking about what makes ai writing so glaring that it’s hard to unsee even when edited down some of it is the emdashes, the lack of typos and imperfections and the repetitive longwinded nature. and the little formatting idiosyncrasies we’ve picked up “it’s not foo, it’s bar.” but i don’t think that’s all of it i review a lot of writing at work: a lot of public and internal blog posts, problem statement docs, PRDs, presentations even there’s this thing that happens, especially with junior folks. they assume that they need to sound “professional”. this is what we teach at school: start with a hook, 5 paragraph essay, use big words to sound smart, length requirements over brevity even before AI this fascinating thing would happen where i would get something to review that would sound like joey’s letter from friends. every word has been replaced with a thesaurus definition to the point of being incomprehensible the result was always jarring and unreadable at first. then i’d ask them to put down what they wrote and say it in their own words. now it would sound normal, and importantly, like them! it reminds me that we trained ai to be this way. AI is merely a reflection of what we’ve taught it and of course it’s not just junior people. if you’re not used to writing, it’s intimidating! it requires staring at a blank sheet of paper and scrutinizing words and ideas as they come to you. it’s easy to reach for the cheat code this is all to say what’s been said before: in an era of AI slop, lean into your voice and your authenticity. let it be choppy and imperfect and expressive and quirky (and personal!). i’m actually not saying “don’t use AI” to help you write. i myself reach for it quite often — it’s a helpful rubber duck (btw i typed that em dash myself ty). but don’t forget that your voice is unique to you and what makes the writing good. don’t let ai rip out the best part
@niloofar_mire 😆😆😆 similar feelings.. I was so frustrated recently
I'm really exhausted, tired & sick 🤢, of finding AI-slop on research papers, X & basically everywhere else.. Please writers understand that AI-GENERATED TEXT is NOT the SAME thing as WRITING THAT COMMUNICATES WELL. If you're trying to explain something, your job isn't to sound sophisticated (AI slop is failing at this too btw), it is to make the reader understand (o.w. why are u even writing??). To do this, one must (1) most importantly RESPECT THE READER's TIME, (2) & therefore write clearly & precisely, (3) & think about what the reader is thinking now (what is she expecting next, what does she need clarification on next?) There's already far too much to read. If you write lengthy essays where it's hard to even make sense of one line (despite repeating it a dozen times in classic AI slop style), people will just move on to the next thing!!! Clarity > complexity. Precision > verbosity.