A.I. Is Making Death Threats Way More Realistic

Even though she was toughened by years spent working in internet activism, Caitlin Roper found herself traumatized by the online threats she received this year.

There was the picture of herself hanging from a noose, dead. And another of herself ablaze, screaming.

The posts were part of a surge of vitriol directed at Ms. Roper and her colleagues at Collective Shout, an Australian activist group, on X and other social media platforms. Some of it, including images of the women flayed, decapitated or fed into a wood chipper, was seemingly enabled — and given a visceral realism — by generative artificial intelligence. In some of the images, Ms. Roper was wearing a blue floral dress that she does, in fact, own.

“It’s these weird little details that make it feel more real and, somehow, a different kind of violation,” she said. “These things can go from fantasy to more than fantasy.”