Negative Parallelism
Sentence StructureThe "It's not X -- it's Y" pattern, often with an em dash. The single most commonly identified AI writing tell. Man I f*cking hate it. AI uses this to create false profundity by framing everything as a surprising reframe. One in a piece can be effective; ten in a blog post is a genuine insult to the reader. Before LLMs, people simply did not write like this at scale. Includes the causal variant "not because X, but because Y" where every explanation is framed as a surprise reveal.
Examples
“It's not bold. It's backwards.”
“Feeding isn't nutrition. It's dialysis.”
“Half the bugs you chase aren't in your code. They're in your head.”
“Debugging isn't just thinking. It's re-thinking.”
“The log is not your diary. It's your surveillance system.”
“This isn't just technical -- it's a mindset change.”
“not because it forced itself into every corner, but because developers pulled it there”
“not because AI is magical, but because platforms are”
“not ideological openness, but strategic openness”
Tags
contrastem-dashreframefalse-profunditymost-commonhedging