From WikiProject AI Cleanup, a guide on spotting fake writing on Wikipedia.
This list is not a ban on certain words, phrases, or punctuation. No one is taking your em-dashes away or claiming that only AI uses them. Not all text featuring the following indicators is AI-generated, as the large language models that power AI chatbots are trained on human writing, including the writing of Wikipedia editors. This is simply a catalog of very common patterns observed over many thousands of instances of AI-generated text, specific to Wikipedia. While some of its advice may be broadly applicable, some signs—particularly those involving punctuation and formatting—may not apply in a non-Wikipedia context.
More on em-dashes:
While human editors and writers often do use em dashes (—), LLM output tends to use them more often than nonprofessional human-written text of the same genre, and uses them in places where humans are more likely to use commas, parentheses, colons, or (misused) hyphens (-). LLMs especially tend to use em dashes in a formulaic, pat way, often mimicking “punched up” sales-like writing by over-emphasizing clauses or parallelisms. LLMs overuse em dashes because they were trained (sometimes illegally) on novels, and novelists have always used em dashes more often than is typical of a layperson.
This sign is most useful when taken in combination with other indicators, not by itself.
I think I’ve been subconsciously using more commas these days.
