OpenAI says it’s fixed ChatGPT’s em dash problem

OpenAI has announced a significant improvement to ChatGPT, allowing users to eliminate em dashes from its responses upon request. This punctuation mark has recently garnered attention as a hallmark of AI-generated text, appearing frequently in various forms of communication such as essays, emails, and social media posts. Critics have pointed out that the presence of em dashes can suggest a lack of originality, while others defend its valid use in writing long before AI models adopted it. The challenge of managing the em dash in ChatGPT's outputs had persisted for some time, with users struggling to prevent its inclusion even when explicitly requesting it. However, OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, recently shared on X that the issue has been addressed. He stated, "If you tell ChatGPT not to use em-dashes in your custom instructions, it finally does what it’s supposed to do," referring to this update as a "small-but-happy win." In a follow-up post on Threads, OpenAI clarified that while ChatGPT will not automatically discard em dashes, users can now tailor its use through the personalization settings. This update empowers users with greater control over the chatbot's punctuation choices, enhancing the overall user experience.