"The post, which came two days after the release of OpenAI's new GPT-5.1 AI model, received mixed reactions from users who have struggled for years with getting the chatbot to follow specific formatting preferences. And this "small win" raises a very big question: If the world's most valuable AI company has struggled with controlling something as simple as punctuation use after years of trying, perhaps what people call artificial general intelligence (AGI) is farther off than some in the industry claim."
"The punctuation mark appears frequently in outputs from ChatGPT and other AI chatbots, sometimes to the point where readers believe they can identify AI writing by its overuse alone-although people can overuse it, too. On Thursday evening, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X that ChatGPT has started following custom instructions to avoid using em dashes. "Small-but-happy win: If you tell ChatGPT not to use em-dashes in your custom instructions, it finally does what it's supposed to do!" he wrote."
Em dashes have become a frequent marker in AI-generated text, appearing often in outputs from ChatGPT and other chatbots. OpenAI announced that ChatGPT began following custom instructions to avoid em dashes after the GPT-5.1 release. Users reacted that controlling punctuation after years reflects limited control and understanding of model internals. The persistence of such small instruction-following failures raises doubts about how close artificial general intelligence or superintelligence truly is. Efforts to enforce simple formatting preferences highlight ongoing instruction-following challenges in current models. Mixed user responses underline skepticism about rapid progress toward human-level AI.
Read at Ars Technica
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