Do we need a term (probably German) for the anxiety that one's work might look like it was generated by machines?
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I heard from someone near me today that to make your work appear less like it was machine-generated the emerging rule is that you should not use the 'em dash', nor write in paragraphs, rather one text block.
I have prior heard another say that text summaries at the end of an article are seen as indication of genAI use, as is text free of typos.
Has anyone heard of other references to behaviour-change born of such anxiety?
@JulianOliver the construction that goes "it isn't only X, it's also Y" is something i've come to suspect as a mark of ai-generated stuff, in both english and romanian
in a more abstract sense, semanticly homogenous language is how i explain ai content to myself. people can (and sometimes do) draw paraleles between semantic domains based on subjective interpretarion. this is metonymy. a LLM can't replicate metonymy, only simile (metaphor) ("x is like y")
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@JulianOliver the construction that goes "it isn't only X, it's also Y" is something i've come to suspect as a mark of ai-generated stuff, in both english and romanian
in a more abstract sense, semanticly homogenous language is how i explain ai content to myself. people can (and sometimes do) draw paraleles between semantic domains based on subjective interpretarion. this is metonymy. a LLM can't replicate metonymy, only simile (metaphor) ("x is like y")
@catileptic What an insightful take, thank you. I had not considered this as a marker/indicator. This makes sense.
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Sieht-hoffentlich-nicht-wie-KI-erzeugt-aus
@wikinaut @JulianOliver Nice one
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Do we need a term (probably German) for the anxiety that one's work might look like it was generated by machines?
@JulianOliver "Wurde nicht von einem stochastischen Papagei verfasst"
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@JulianOliver Do you mean "Künstlicheintellgenzerzeugungsangst"?
Künstlicheintelligenzerzeugnisverwechslungsgefahrsangst would be more precise
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@JulianOliver "Wurde nicht von einem stochastischen Papagei verfasst"
@themadhatter True! We don't hear much about the parrot anymore. We should bring it back -- a useful metaphor.
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Do we need a term (probably German) for the anxiety that one's work might look like it was generated by machines?
@JulianOliver Freteration: The wash of anxiety one feels thinking about presenting something you just created and people may think it was AI generated.
EG: Jill sat in sweat as the gallery owner looked over her art. Freteration overtook her thinking her paintings may look like they were made by MidJourney.
Origin: Fret: intransitive verb (frettˈing; frettˈed)
To vex oneself
To worryWorrai: The anxiety one feels when people think what you just created may be AI generated. A lexical blend of worry and AI.
EG: While waiting to give his speech, John was filled with worrai thinking his professor would think he used AI instead of writing it himself.
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I heard from someone near me today that to make your work appear less like it was machine-generated the emerging rule is that you should not use the 'em dash', nor write in paragraphs, rather one text block.
I have prior heard another say that text summaries at the end of an article are seen as indication of genAI use, as is text free of typos.
Has anyone heard of other references to behaviour-change born of such anxiety?
@JulianOliver Maybe. But making your writing worse (or even different) because AI does something seems foolish to me.
Of course, em-dashes can be misused or overused, as can almost anything else. But they are not intrinsically bad and are sometimes essential. Many great writers use them frequently.
On the other hand, LLMs love emoji, and I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reducing their use.
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@JulianOliver Maybe. But making your writing worse (or even different) because AI does something seems foolish to me.
Of course, em-dashes can be misused or overused, as can almost anything else. But they are not intrinsically bad and are sometimes essential. Many great writers use them frequently.
On the other hand, LLMs love emoji, and I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reducing their use.
@njr In agreement. I am opposed to any behavioural modification as a function of this would-be anxiety, just interested in it as a socio-technical symptom of our times.
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@JulianOliver Freteration: The wash of anxiety one feels thinking about presenting something you just created and people may think it was AI generated.
EG: Jill sat in sweat as the gallery owner looked over her art. Freteration overtook her thinking her paintings may look like they were made by MidJourney.
Origin: Fret: intransitive verb (frettˈing; frettˈed)
To vex oneself
To worryWorrai: The anxiety one feels when people think what you just created may be AI generated. A lexical blend of worry and AI.
EG: While waiting to give his speech, John was filled with worrai thinking his professor would think he used AI instead of writing it himself.
@R_3_T_3_C_H 'Worrai' is surely a candidate! Sharp.
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Do we need a term (probably German) for the anxiety that one's work might look like it was generated by machines?
@JulianOliver Slopschmerz, causing a lot of Kummerspeck.
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@JulianOliver Slopschmerz, causing a lot of Kummerspeck.
@jpoesen The moment I read your reply I found myself saying "damn I miss German".
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I heard from someone near me today that to make your work appear less like it was machine-generated the emerging rule is that you should not use the 'em dash', nor write in paragraphs, rather one text block.
I have prior heard another say that text summaries at the end of an article are seen as indication of genAI use, as is text free of typos.
Has anyone heard of other references to behaviour-change born of such anxiety?
This article shared by @slackline has some strongly-related fight in it https://www.theringer.com/2025/08/20/pop-culture/em-dash-use-ai-artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-google-gemini
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@catileptic What an insightful take, thank you. I had not considered this as a marker/indicator. This makes sense.
@JulianOliver if you'd like to read a bit about the difference between metonymy and metaphor (which are, at their core, concepts from within literature critique and theory), but applied to technologies (like search engines), i highly recommend Alfie Bown's book 'Dream Lovers', chapter 4 (The Match: Metaphor vs Metonymy). you don't need to read the rest of the chapters in order to get something from this one
(but it's also a genuinely good book!) -
@JulianOliver if you'd like to read a bit about the difference between metonymy and metaphor (which are, at their core, concepts from within literature critique and theory), but applied to technologies (like search engines), i highly recommend Alfie Bown's book 'Dream Lovers', chapter 4 (The Match: Metaphor vs Metonymy). you don't need to read the rest of the chapters in order to get something from this one
(but it's also a genuinely good book!)@JulianOliver and if i can push this forward one more time:
in literature, legibility isn't a necessity. neither is coherence. and neither is a complete match between form and content. this is what made James Joyce, Pynchon, Heamingway great (to name the ones that most people from different countries might have come across, because we surely have our own examples in local literature)
genAI algorithms has no concept of form versus content. and thus can not create a divergence between the two
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@JulianOliver if you'd like to read a bit about the difference between metonymy and metaphor (which are, at their core, concepts from within literature critique and theory), but applied to technologies (like search engines), i highly recommend Alfie Bown's book 'Dream Lovers', chapter 4 (The Match: Metaphor vs Metonymy). you don't need to read the rest of the chapters in order to get something from this one
(but it's also a genuinely good book!)@catileptic Thanks a lot. I'll look for this!
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@JulianOliver and if i can push this forward one more time:
in literature, legibility isn't a necessity. neither is coherence. and neither is a complete match between form and content. this is what made James Joyce, Pynchon, Heamingway great (to name the ones that most people from different countries might have come across, because we surely have our own examples in local literature)
genAI algorithms has no concept of form versus content. and thus can not create a divergence between the two
@catileptic This is also insightful, and I must say encouraging.
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@njr In agreement. I am opposed to any behavioural modification as a function of this would-be anxiety, just interested in it as a socio-technical symptom of our times.
@JulianOliver Sure. Agree with that.
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I heard from someone near me today that to make your work appear less like it was machine-generated the emerging rule is that you should not use the 'em dash', nor write in paragraphs, rather one text block.
I have prior heard another say that text summaries at the end of an article are seen as indication of genAI use, as is text free of typos.
Has anyone heard of other references to behaviour-change born of such anxiety?
@JulianOliver Oh I added em-dashes to my writing to mess with people who use poor heuristics to detect AI use
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@JulianOliver the construction that goes "it isn't only X, it's also Y" is something i've come to suspect as a mark of ai-generated stuff, in both english and romanian
in a more abstract sense, semanticly homogenous language is how i explain ai content to myself. people can (and sometimes do) draw paraleles between semantic domains based on subjective interpretarion. this is metonymy. a LLM can't replicate metonymy, only simile (metaphor) ("x is like y")
@catileptic @JulianOliver Yeah, I feel you there. I do a double-take whenever I see that construct on pre-2022 media.
In general anything AI does it does because it picks up patterns from human text. So there's no One feature that makes it AI, more like a cluster of features that comes across as a tone or a style. It's hard to describe. I think the best way to put it is the use of writing devices for the sake of using them, rather than to convey information or illustrate a point. This can also give the text an exaggerated, almost zealous tone.
When it comes to em dashes, "it's not x it's y", etc, it's more about how it sits within the text rather than simply its presence. If it's being used sparingly to make a point, probably human. If it comes across as weird and forced and overdone, probably AI.
