While the article could very well be slop (and I’m not defending it either way, also fuck the CEO of microsoft), it’s very common for (actual) journalists to use the emdash, that’s where the models likely picked it up from to begin with. I hesitate to use the emdash alone as an indicator for slop. When it’s paired with lists, lots of bold, over embellishments, and common slop phrases (“but here’s the thing”, “everything changed”, “marking a pivotal moment”, “the transformative power”, “further enhancing”, “pivotal”, etc), then I start to think that it’s LLM slop. Wikipedia has a great page on how to spot common slop. It also mentions that one of these is not necessarily a sign of slop, but when there’s a lot of these together it definitely can be.
The statement from the CEO is almost certainly LLM slop.
Some of us—those educated when language was actually still taught in school—use em-dashes for their correct purpose. I refuse to stop using correct punctuation because some jackass somewhere on the Innarwebtubes will call it LLMbecile slop. That’s a them problem, not a me problem.
Yes, both on my computer and on my phone. And before finding a decent keyboard disposition on my computer, I used the “Ctrl+Shift+u+unicode” shortcut. It’s been years but I still remember that the code point for the emdash is 2014.
Just because you can’t type a character, don’t assume that this is the case for everyone. Some people care about punctuation and will make efforts about this kind of stuff.
The biggest injustice I had to endure due to AI is my proud keyboard setup which enabled me to use emdashes and correct quotation marks liberally becoming useless unless I want ppl to think it’s AI writing…
Amazing irony that this article was written by AI
Emdashes all over the place
While the article could very well be slop (and I’m not defending it either way, also fuck the CEO of microsoft), it’s very common for (actual) journalists to use the emdash, that’s where the models likely picked it up from to begin with. I hesitate to use the emdash alone as an indicator for slop. When it’s paired with lists, lots of bold, over embellishments, and common slop phrases (“but here’s the thing”, “everything changed”, “marking a pivotal moment”, “the transformative power”, “further enhancing”, “pivotal”, etc), then I start to think that it’s LLM slop. Wikipedia has a great page on how to spot common slop. It also mentions that one of these is not necessarily a sign of slop, but when there’s a lot of these together it definitely can be.
The statement from the CEO is almost certainly LLM slop.
Some of us—those educated when language was actually still taught in school—use em-dashes for their correct purpose. I refuse to stop using correct punctuation because some jackass somewhere on the Innarwebtubes will call it LLMbecile slop. That’s a them problem, not a me problem.
“it has em dashes” is the worst reason to assume something came from an llm
Do you have an emdash button on your keyboard?
Yep. Took me a few seconds to find m dash, n dash, and whatever the dot dash thing is. Just long press the dash on gkeyboard
alt codes, baby!
alt+0151
Yes, both on my computer and on my phone. And before finding a decent keyboard disposition on my computer, I used the “Ctrl+Shift+u+unicode” shortcut. It’s been years but I still remember that the code point for the emdash is 2014.
Just because you can’t type a character, don’t assume that this is the case for everyone. Some people care about punctuation and will make efforts about this kind of stuff.
The biggest injustice I had to endure due to AI is my proud keyboard setup which enabled me to use emdashes and correct quotation marks liberally becoming useless unless I want ppl to think it’s AI writing…