By itself it's not a tell but combined with all else it's hard to pass by. Author's other article from 2025 has less than half the dashes and it's the same length

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panflute 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How would the rise of dash usage in LLMs have arised if a significant portion of non-LLM writers weren't inclined to take them up and make them more common? The only explanation I see is that they are common in training materials we don't as commonly consume as website visitors.

	▲	phainopepla2 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have often wondered this myself, especially because the same stylistic quirks are found across models from different labs. I haven't found a satisfactory explanation, but whatever the explanation is, it is undoubtedly true that LLMs use them to an almost absurd extent compared to the vast majority of human writers. Anyone who reads a lot of prose can see that.

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NoMoreNicksLeft 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So we're actually witnessing in real time that he was slowly learning where to use emdashes? That's sort of hilarious.