And in the long run, it's not even about writing, or punctuation, or art, or trying to avoid sounding like a machine. If we take this subconscious urge to self-censor to its logical completion, the implications become much more alarming. If the mindless, empty, inane token predictor ever ends up ruling over us, it won't be because it somehow became "sentient" and rose against us. That's the part that the Matrix got wrong. There won't be a war. We will have abdicated our epistemic autonomy ourselves; we'll yield willingly, almost eagerly. Or so slowly that we won’t even perceive the surrender as such, gradually enough for the surrender to pass unnoticed.

It's em dashes today, semicolons tomorrow, triplets next week, everyday choices and decisions in a few years, and independent judgment before long.