[Generated Title]: ChatGPT's Em Dash Problem: Solved, or Just Swept Under the Rug?
So, ChatGPT finally figured out how to not use em dashes? Big whoop.
We’re supposed to be impressed that a multi-billion dollar company took, what, months to fix something that should’ve been a simple code tweak? Gimme a break.
Sam Altman tweets about it like it's some monumental achievement: "small-but-happy win." More like a small-but-should've-been-fixed-ages-ago embarrassment. Let's be real, the em dash thing wasn't just annoying; it was a flashing neon sign screaming, "Hey, this was written by a freakin' robot!" And people are getting wise to it.
The "AI Writing" Stigma
The article mentions that the em dash became a “newly objectionable addition to any text.” Objectionable? It's a freakin' punctuation mark! But that’s the point, ain't it? It's not about the dash itself; it's about what it represents: soulless, generic, AI-generated garbage flooding the internet.
And now they pat themselves on the back for finally giving us a way to turn it off? OpenAI says it’s fixed ChatGPT’s em dash problem
It's like a car company bragging about finally including brakes as a standard feature.
But here's the kicker: it's not even off by default! You gotta go into your "personalization settings" and tell the damn thing, "Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop using so many em dashes!"
Are you kidding me?
The Illusion of Control
This whole thing is a perfect example of how these companies try to give us the illusion of control. Oh, you can "customize" your AI experience! You can "personalize" its output! But at the end of the day, it's still churning out the same bland, unoriginal content, just with slightly different window dressing.
And let's not forget the real issue here: people using AI to write their school papers, emails, and LinkedIn posts. Lazy doesn't even begin to cover it. What happened to critical thinking? What happened to, you know, actually learning something?
Speaking of learning, I was trying to help my nephew with his geometry homework the other day. This kid is obsessed with Geometry Dash and other dash games on his scratch account, but can't figure out basic angles. What is this world coming to?
This whole "AI writing" trend is a symptom of a much larger problem: the dumbing down of society. We're so obsessed with convenience and efficiency that we're willing to sacrifice quality, originality, and, yes, even basic human skills.
The Real Problem Remains
So, ChatGPT can now (sort of) avoid em dashes. Great. Does that mean the AI-generated content is suddenly good? Does it mean it's suddenly original? Offcourse not. It just means it's slightly less obvious that it was written by a robot.
The real problem isn't the em dashes; it's the fact that we're relying on AI to do our thinking and writing for us in the first place. And until we address that, all the em dash fixes in the world aren't going to make a damn bit of difference.
So, What's the Real Story?
This "fix" is just a PR stunt to distract us from the fact that these AI tools are fundamentally changing the way we communicate, and not for the better. Maybe I'm just an old, grumpy cynic. Maybe I'm the one who's out of touch. But something tells me I'm not alone here.
