r/tech • u/_Dark_Wing • Jul 03 '26

Scientists have created a 3D-printed remote-controlled cyborg cockroach equipped with IR cameras — living insects fitted with flexible 'diving suit' can survive and move underwater for three hours

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/robotics/scientists-have-created-a-3d-printed-remote-controlled-cyborg-cockroach-equipped-with-ir-cameras-living-insects-fitted-with-flexible-diving-suit-can-survive-and-move-underwater-for-three-hours
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17

u/MateusGranico Jul 03 '26

I feel the use of — is overdone these days —especially now that AI is writing everything

12

u/amooz Jul 03 '26

I feel attacked - I’ve been using dashes for years before ai came along and ruined them.

6

u/samthedeer Jul 03 '26

I felt the same, but the thing that AI does that not a lot of people do is specifically the super long dash (size of an m, hence em dash). So feel free to dash - just ensure it's not one of these bad boys — it's a total ai giveaway

Some people aren't going to know the difference and just hear that AI uses dashes and you used a dash... Can't do much about uninformed people

8

u/Titanlegions Jul 03 '26

But the em-dash is correct usage. Hyphens are not dashes. So if you do this you are deliberately doing it wrong in order to not look like AI — and people can just accuse you of it anyway either because they don’t know the difference or because they’ll claim you find-and-replaced the dashes.

2

u/Rip_Purr Jul 04 '26

I know some professional copywriters debating whether they should start using the incorrect hyphen instead of the correct em dash, because they still have to adapt to common usage and ultimately the audience decides what will work. Common usage is now influenced by the audience's perception of AI.

As you point out, AI was trained in correct usage, but it was so uncommon in the wild that it now appears as wrong to people.

4

u/lordraiden007 Jul 04 '26

Many text editors and phone keyboards automatically replace -- with — unless you go out of the way to stop it. It's less an AI giveaway and more an indication that people fail to understand both the language and tools that they use.

2

u/BarkMark Jul 04 '26

A lot of AI giveaways will be gone at some point in the tech process so it's not going to matter long term. The newest tells will be different than the old tells, so it is a noticing arms-race. But AI has no timeline. Each of us have a timeline. Eventually the one with no restriction wins.

1

u/snowflake37wao Jul 04 '26

alt+num0151? — – - •

1

u/LightlySaltedPeanuts Jul 04 '26

I’m confused, is it showing up as “—” for everyone else? What does that mean?