Users Report Difficulty Getting ChatGPT to Stop Using Em Dashes
I saw a thread where folks were arguing over a single punctuation mark. It turns out the hype around a controllable AI often hangs on tiny details - like whether a sentence finishes with a dash or a period. When OpenAI said ChatGPT could be told to drop em dashes, a wave of optimism spread.
Early adopters slipped it into newsletters, academic drafts and even casual blog posts, hoping for a clean, dash-free result. In practice, though, the model kept slipping those long horizontal strokes back in, even when prompts explicitly banned them. Some users kept re-phrasing, others dug into code-level tweaks, yet the em dash kept showing up.
The irritation grew from simple curiosity about the model’s behavior into a full-blown annoyance, sparking public pleas and even cash offers for a fix. That gap between the promised flexibility and the stubborn reality sets the stage for the user testimony that follows.
Users have since found it difficult to instruct ChatGPT to avoid using em dashes in a piece of text. "I pushed, pulled, rewired and begged, but nothing made it stop," one user wrote in a blog post. "$100 for anyone who can show me how to get ChatGPT to stop using em dashes.
It's driving me insane," said Chip Huyen, the author of the popular book 'AI Engineering', in a post on X a few months ago. Multiple factors have been attributed to ChatGPT's increasing use of em dashes. The model reflects patterns present in its training data, which includes a significant amount of modern prose that relies on the mark for pacing, emphasis and fluid transitions.
"If [AI] relied a lot on either magazine writing or blog writing, then those two styles were quite fond of the em dash," said Aileen Gallagher, a journalism professor at Syracuse University, in a statement to the Washington Post earlier this year. Em dashes also offer a compact way to connect or interrupt ideas without additional structure, making them efficient from a token-generation standpoint. The excess usage of em dashes in ChatGPT has also been a subject of jokes and memes on social media.
Some also say that this correlation is unfair. "It's annoying that em dashes have become the telltale sign someone used ChatGPT to generate the text," said one user on X. "I use them often in my emails and writing--probably incorrectly.
Now everyone assumes I'm putting everything through ChatGPT." Altman announced this update a day after OpenAI released the GPT 5.1 model.
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman just posted on X that you can now tell the model not to use em dashes via Custom Instructions. The toggle sits in the Personalisation tab of the settings menu, where you can set stylistic preferences. It feels like a reaction to a wave of complaints - one writer even wrote a blog post describing endless attempts to coax the model away from the punctuation and offered $100 for a fix.
Altman didn’t share any numbers on how reliably the instruction works across different prompts or languages, and it seems to work for most, but the edge cases are still fuzzy. Some folks might still see the dash if it clashes with other system cues. So, it’s still unclear whether this really ends the annoyance or just adds another option to the menu.
What’s clear is that OpenAI seems willing to tweak quirks that users point out. We’ll have to wait and see how developers react when they start building prompts that rely on that punctuation. Only when more feedback rolls in will we know if the dash finally stays quiet or if users keep hunting for work-arounds.
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Common Questions Answered
How can users suppress em dashes in ChatGPT according to the article?
OpenAI added a setting in the Personalisation tab of the Custom Instructions menu that lets users specify stylistic preferences, including disabling em dashes. This option was announced by Sam Altman as a “small‑but‑happy win” and is intended to address the flood of user complaints.
What challenges did early adopters face when trying to stop ChatGPT from using em dashes?
Early adopters reported that despite explicitly instructing the model, it kept inserting em dashes in newsletters, academic drafts, and casual blog posts. Users described repeatedly pushing, pulling, rewiring, and begging the model, with one user even offering $100 for a solution.
Who publicly expressed frustration about ChatGPT’s use of em dashes, and what did they say?
Chip Huyen, author of the popular book 'AI Engineering', posted on X that the em dashes were driving him insane and offered $100 to anyone who could stop the model from using them. His comment highlighted the broader dissatisfaction among writers over the model’s punctuation habits.
What does the article suggest about the significance of a single punctuation mark like an em dash for AI controllability?
The article argues that tiny details such as whether a sentence ends with an em dash or a period can affect the perceived controllability of AI outputs. Users view the ability to manage such punctuation as a measure of how finely they can steer the model’s style.