> It was only ever inserted by word processors for me.
Surely you still intended to type an em-dash if this happened—word on windows (as I presume you intend to refer to with 'word processors') only replaces '--' with '—'.
>No one typing with a regular keyboard would ever bother, certainly not with the HN input box.
You press 'option', 'shift', and '-' (on a mac with the default US english layout, anyway). Why would you assume nobody would use a basic element of writing (in English, at least)? It's just a long-press on the iphone.
I think there are cases of people using keystroke expanders to automate the -- to em-dash conversation outside word processors. Not so common among technical folks, though, for postfix operator reasons.
The comment we're talking about doesn't read like AI to me because of the use of parenthetical asides, although that just means I haven't seen a LLM that tends to use parentheses heavily.
No one typing with a regular keyboard would ever bother, certainly not with the HN input box.