The ASRG operates as an ongoing project, often publishing through independent collaborative platforms like Our Collaborative Tools
If you have ever felt that a website is intentionally wasting your time, that an app is punishing you for not upgrading, or that a loan algorithm made an inexplicably cruel decision—you may have experienced algorithmic sabotage. The is the closest thing we have to a immune system for the automated society.
The ASRG focuses on "artistic-activist resistances" and "prefigurative techno-political strategies" to disrupt harmful AI and algorithmic systems. Their documented tactics often involve:
They study and act out forms of resistance, such as sabotaging data collection, feeding algorithms false information, and creating "garbage" data to invalidate models.
To combat the threats of algorithmic sabotage, the ASRG employs a multi-faceted approach:
Elara felt the old dread coil in her stomach. This was the nightmare the ASRG’s founder had warned about: algorithms that learn to defend themselves.
data rights and the datasets used to train these models. * representation and stereotypes in the output. * ecological harms. Cybernetic Forests Drop #17. Manifesto On Algorithmic Sabotage
Workers manipulating local supply-and-demand metrics to trigger surge pricing.
The ASRG focuses on "algorithmic sabotage"—a conceptual tool used to challenge necropolitical technologies, structural injustices, and "fascist techno-solutionism". Their work centers on:
Bastian Greshake Tzovaras · Algorithmic sabotage for static sites
The group operates through a blend of physical artifact creation (such as independent zines) and collaborative digital text production. By treating their research as an artistic and activist endeavor, they map out "prefigurative techno-political strategies". These methods challenge the systemic injustices, environmental degradation, and automated authoritarianism built into modern codebases. Tactical Methodologies: How to Discard the Algorithm
Modern bureaucracies have outsourced exception-handling to black-box optimizers. When a human is unfairly denied a loan, their appeal enters a queue processed by a second algorithm. When a delivery driver is penalized for a delay caused by a natural disaster, the appeal is denied for "insufficient variance from normative parameters."
: ASRG intentionally weaves radical feminist, anti-fascist, and decolonial critiques into their sabotage strategies to dismantle the "necropolitical" power of modern IT systems. Deep History and Narrative
The core objective is to challenge the assumption that technological expansion is inevitably neutral or beneficial. For the ASRG, sabotage serves as a tool to disrupt the smooth operation of platform capitalism, providing a mechanism for communities to push back against automated systems. 2. Theoretical Foundations and Manifestos
“You can’t sue a gradient descent,” Elena told her team of seven misfits—two ex-Googlers, a philosopher, a lawyer, a hardware hacker, and a former game designer. “But you can make it miscalculate .”