Why kill the em dashes? They are a legitimate mark — one that I have been using for years. On a Mac, you quickly get used to pressing shift-option-hyphen. Em dashes are typographically correct and should be used.
For the illiterate, sure. Where do you think LLMs picked them up from?
Most people use the - at most, or rephrase.
One rarely if ever should write at a level that's above high school reading for day to day articles and tasks.
I've written for a large computer magazine, you know what the target is? It's John: A 21yo man taking ~CS classes and with some disposable income. Not a lit major. John has no idea what that wide - is, doesn't care, and wouldn't understand fancy writing anyway.
It is a sad state of affairs if we are to accept degenerating into illiteracy.
A total, artificial lack of em dashes can in itself be perceived as another sign of AI writing.
I’ve already seen that trick snuck in by newer models. “I won’t use em-dashes; I’ll use semi-colons!”