Generative AI, em dashes and who’s schooling whom

I recently had a conversation with a friend, a teacher, on the impact of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) on her high school students’ work. Not its potential to undermine critical thinking skills or erode perseverance for complex problem solving. Our conversation was tightly focused on the proliferation of em dashes—a dead giveaway, apparently, of AI authorship.

But this gen AI debate isn’t really a punctuation issue. This is an AI learning issue. AI is learning from us. The problem is we no longer like what we’ve taught it—and it has more to learn.