Have you ever wanted revenge? I mean, really enjoyed it. Someone screwed you over at work. An ex spread lies. A friend betrayed you. And you thought, just for a moment, “If only I could make them pay.”
You’re human. Of course you have. Revenge is baked into us—it goes back to Cain and Abel. But here’s what keeps me up at night: that ancient impulse has collided with the most powerful technology we’ve ever created.
AI isn't just changing how we work or communicate anymore. It's changing how we hurt each other. How we blindside people. How we destroy them. And the barriers that once limited revenge? They're gone.
Artificial intelligence has stripped away every natural barrier that once limited revenge. Let me show you what this actually looks like.
Right now, generative AI can create photorealistic fake images of anyone—including explicit sexual content.
Picture this: You break up with someone. They're pissed. Within minutes, they can create dozens of explicit images of you that never happened and send them to your employer, your family, everyone on your social media.
Even when people know it's fake, the damage is done. Your reputation is destroyed. Your privacy is violated. And nobody can unsee what's been created.
This isn't hypothetical. It's happening thousands of times every day.
“Agentic AI”—AI that can act independently—is already being weaponized for extortion. Someone with a grudge uses AI to identify your vulnerabilities, scour your social media, map your connections, and craft psychologically tailored threats designed specifically to terrify you. It can build custom malware. Automate the entire attack.
What used to require a team of skilled hackers and weeks of planning? One angry person with a laptop can do it in an afternoon.
Then there's automated harassment. AI bots coordinate doxxing campaigns—publishing your address, phone number, and your family's information. They flood your employer with fake complaints. Create hundreds of fake reviews destroying your business. Organize a digital lynch mob.
And the person pulling the strings? Sitting safely behind a screen with complete deniability.
Revenge isn't a single act anymore. It's continuous, AI-supported domination.
We're already seeing signs that this is becoming normalized. And most people don't even recognize them.
Our entertainment glorifies technologically enabled revenge. The hacker who brings down the corrupt corporation. The protagonist who uses tech to destroy enemies “with no mercy.” We're making revenge look cool. Aspirational even.
Then there's the “tech fantasy of omnipotence”—stories where AI gives the wronged hero god-like powers to watch, expose, and punish anyone. Vigilante justice for the digital age.
But here's the most dangerous sign: We're increasingly accepting humiliation, exposure, and harm as legitimate forms of “accountability.” There's a huge difference between holding powerful people responsible through proper channels and using doxxing, deepfakes, and coordinated harassment to destroy someone. When we blur that line, when we say, “they deserved it,” we're not promoting justice. We're promoting revenge.
Think about who actually bears the brunt of AI-enabled revenge:
Women facing deepfake sexual abuse. Racial and religious minorities targeted by coordinated harassment. Dissidents and journalists silenced through digital threats. The vulnerable. The marginalized. People with the least power to fight back because revenge, like all forms of violence, flows downhill.
AI-enabled revenge takes someone's worst moment—factual or fabricated—and makes it permanent, searchable, inescapable. It reduces an entire human being to one thing: the target. The enemy. The one who deserves it.
Before you can resist AI-powered revenge in the world, you have to resist it in yourself. You have to create space for reflection. Interrupt your own rush to judgment. Your own desire for payback. Your own need to see others destroyed. You have to take seriously an old aphorism: “Why do you notice the speck in your neighbor’s eye but fail to notice the log in your own eye?”
Self-examination isn't soft. This is the hardest work there is. Here are concrete actions you can take:
• Search for articles on AI ethics, deepfakes, and digital harassment
• Watch documentaries about people affected by image-based abuse
• Follow experts working on AI safety and digital rights
• Review your privacy settings and limit publicly accessible information
• If you see online harassment, don't pile on—report it and support the target
• Believe victims who report being targeted by deepfakes or digital harassment
• Contact your representatives about stronger laws against AI-enabled harassment
• Support organizations fighting for digital rights and AI ethics
• Advocate for ethical AI policies in your workplace
• Start conversations in your community about these issues
This is the hardest one. Every time we say, “they deserved it,” every time we share the embarrassing leak, every time we enjoy watching someone be destroyed online—we're feeding the system that makes AI-powered revenge possible.
When you feel that surge of satisfaction at someone's public humiliation—pause. Breathe. Ask yourself: Is this making me more human or less? Am I growing in wisdom or shrinking in spirit?
Practice seeing people as more than their worst moment. Practice choosing accountability over humiliation, justice over revenge.
Thomas Merton (1915–1968), a great theologian and mystic, talked about “contemplative seeing”—looking at people, even those who've hurt you, with the eyes of compassion. AI isn't good or evil. It's a mirror that reflects how we look upon the world, what values we hold, and it magnifies our impulses. When we build AI systems that harden resentments and reduce people to their worst moments, we are amplifying what is dangerous about ourselves.
But here's the hope: We can choose differently.
We can build AI systems that promote reconciliation instead of retaliation. We can create digital spaces that protect dignity rather than destroy it. We can use our most powerful technology not to settle scores, but to break cycles of harm.
The ancient impulse toward revenge isn't going away. But we don't have to give it an algorithm.
The question isn't whether AI can enable revenge. It already does.
The question is whether we will let it, and whether we will be the generation that finally says: “This stops with us.”
Not because we lack the power to hurt, but because we've finally cultivated the wisdom to refrain.
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