The reason LLMs tend to use a lot of em dashes is that the human-authored texts they were trained on used a lot of em dashes.
The reason LLMs tend to use a lot of em dashes is that the human-authored texts they were trained on used a lot of em dashes.
Plenty? I don't think it's that many. And knowing how to use them, doesn't mean they would actually use them. In my experience, em dashes are mainly found in academic literature. Chances that an em dash in a new text comes from an LLM are pretty high.
Your use of it is dubious, I think. Commas would serve equally well --or better-- since it's a simple conjunction, not an interjection.
I've used `--` for years in place of an em-dash, which markdown renders as an actual em-dash.
Opus 5 does not speak like a normal, average, or common English user. For example, it says “stated plainly” or “worth stating plainly” (two very uncommon English phrases) every two or three responses.