You've started stripping em dashes out of your writing, afraid a reader will think a bot wrote it.
But that trades a hypothetical accusation for real comma splices and clunky breaks — like killing your headlights to dodge a ticket.
The dash is a legitimate, powerful tool, and what a pair of them really does is not define or decorate but emphasize.
So how do you use the em dash without sounding like a bot?
You don't abandon it; you reserve it.
A pair of em dashes is a spotlight for the clause you most want felt, so demote the rest — definitions to "comma + which," quiet asides to parentheses — and keep the dash for the thing you'd otherwise bold.
Used with restraint it hits hard and reads as craft, not a bot; used everywhere, even by good writers, it means nothing.