Ask HN: Do AIs reply with numerous em dashes to save money somehow?
3 points
1 hour ago
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Maybe those replies are cheaper to generate at least for some models like those used by ChatGPT?
incomingpain
1 hour ago
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No. For hundreds of years authors loved to use the em dash. It was a sign of quality writing. Only very recently has it stopped getting used and only because the - is on the wrong side of the keyboard and it's becoming more a hyphen instead.

When someone uses an em dash, it implies they arent using a normal keyboard; not even dvorak.

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rishikeshs
2 minutes ago
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But MS word automatically converts a '-' to an emdash
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amichail
40 minutes ago
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So maybe the training data has a lot of old English writing and overcoming the model's tendency to use em dashes everywhere with custom instructions would use up more electricity in AI replies.
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