The “m-dash implies AI usage” argument is flawed.

There have been persons who have argued that should an admissions officer see the usage of an m-dash “—“ in your college essay, it would signal to them that you used AI to generate an essay. AI software tends to use m-dashes in their generated essays, so the argument is that if an essay has the m-dash, AI was used. At the very least, AI was most likely behind creating the essay provided to them.

This argument is predicated on a bold assumption. That the m-dash could have only come from the writing of an AI. That m-dashes are a signature of AI writing and a human wouldn’t have the ability to properly use an m-dash, thus any presence of it in an essay would indicate the writing of a higher-order writer (AI) and not a human. The thing is, a person can easily place it in their essay as it’s an easily type-able symbol with a keyboard. Knowing how to use it properly isn’t that hard. So humans using it in their essays are possible and should be fairly common given the fairly easy nature of its usage.

Further to that, that logic means that once I use an m-dash, I am apparently an AI now. I don’t magically turn into an AI when I use it nor am I blocked from typing it in because I’m a human. If you assume that the m-dash came from AI, you’re neglecting the many cases where a human just simply used it. It’s a ridiculous assumption.

Also, the people who write and prepare for the SAT, don’t they have to learn about m-dashes as they’re a topic that comes up in the grammar section. Aren’t those same people going to want to or tend to use their knowledge in essays? The very people who are writing these essays most likely had to learn m-dashes to qualify for that same college (assuming the college is test mandatory or so competitive that a good SAT score would help more than none at all).

tl;dr if you’re arguing this, you’re assuming that a human being didn’t just type it out. Rather, that in all cases where the m-dash is there, an AI — and only an AI — could’ve typed it out. It’s a ridiculous argument; it’s so ridiculous, I had to spend all this space trying to break it down and make sense of it.

EDIT: “em-dashes” not m-dashes. Well at least you know it wasn’t an AI that made this post 😭😭