[michaelbuck]

Other comments pointed out the semi-obvious use of AI due to em dashes.

I'm honestly at a point where every suspicious aspect of that post could as well be counted as a countermeasure to getting caught. Said engineer could still be working at the company or could've left years ago. In my opinion the mentioned financial adjustments could've been a discussion topic for higher ups far far earlier than 2025.

Considering how ruthless Uber has acted thorough the years[0] I am almost 100% sure other startups with similar opportunities have at the very least committed crimes on a similar scale to the linked Reddit confession.

Bonus option: The Reddit account starts astroturfing in a few weeks and this was just a run-of-the-mill bot automation to gain karma which happened to overlap with HN interests.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Uber

[kayge]

Counterpoint: I've been using em dashes and bulleted lists in my writing (especially in work emails) since around 2015. There are dozens of us! Or maybe I'm just an LLM in a meat suit — who knows at this point.

[nerdponx]

Em dashes are also historically a useful writing tool in English going back 100+ years, and plenty of real people use them.

[mmh0000]

I love em dashes — they're the greatest — it makes me very sad that LLMs have tarnished their reputation.

Back in the days before LLMs, I went out of my way to set up the Compose key on Linux, just so I could do cool things like —, ®, ™, and ¹ quickly!

[hajile]

Where did AIs learn those em dashes from?