Em-dashes as an AI detection signal on Hacker News

Interesting analysis showing that new Hacker News accounts are more likely to use em-dashes (—) in their comments. This is being used as a potential AI detection signal.

Why? LLMs like Claude tend to use em-dashes more frequently than typical human writers. It’s become a subtle stylistic fingerprint of AI-generated text.

Takeaway: Writing style matters. If you’re using AI to help write, be aware of these tells. Or maybe just embrace it — the em-dash is a perfectly valid punctuation mark.