Algorithmic Sabotage Research Group %28asrg%29 (2027)

The group theorizes the legality and ethics of sabotage. They argue that sabotaging an algorithm is a form of civil disobedience, particularly when the algorithm itself is deemed unjust (e.g., a biased predictive policing tool).

The Algorithmic Sabotage Research Group is not a solution. It is a symptom. Their very existence proves that we have built systems faster than we have built governance, automated decisions without auditing their ethics, and worshipped efficiency while ignoring fragility.

But until the rest of the world catches up—until we have international treaties on adversarial AI resilience, mandatory algorithmic stress-testing, and real liability for algorithmic harms—the ASRG will continue its work in the shadows. They will buy cheap boats. They will plant fake data. They will confuse drones with stickers.

And every time a perfectly correct algorithm fails to cause real-world harm, an anonymous researcher in a desert observatory will allow themselves a small, quiet smile.

They threw a wooden shoe into the gears. The machine stopped. And no one got hurt.

That, they will tell you, is not terrorism. That is engineering.

This article is based on publicly available research, leaked documents, and interviews conducted under pseudonym protection. The Algorithmic Sabotage Research Group does not endorse, condemn, or acknowledge this article’s existence.

The Algorithmic Sabotage Research Group (ASRG) is a conspiratorial, aesthetico-political, and practice-led research framework that explores the intersection of digital culture, information technology, and militant political agency. Operating as an anonymous or collective entity, the group focuses on conceptualizing and implementing "algorithmic sabotage" as a form of techno-disobedience and artistic activism against what they describe as "necropolitical technologies" and structural injustices. Core Philosophy and the "Manifesto on Algorithmic Sabotage" algorithmic sabotage research group %28asrg%29

The ASRG gained visibility primarily through its Manifesto on Algorithmic Sabotage, a foundational document consisting of ten statements (numbered 0 to 9) that outline the group's principles. The manifesto frames algorithmic sabotage not merely as a technical act, but as an "action-oriented commitment to solidarity" that precedes legal or social classification. Key tenets of the group's philosophy include:

Techno-Disobedience: ASRG positions sabotage as a necessary figure of militancy that is often missing from traditional academic technology critiques.

Refusal of Legibility: The group advocates for becoming "unreadable" to systems of power to evade exploitation and corporate surveillance.

Resistance to Profit Maximization: They explicitly reject the use of algorithmic systems for power and profit, focusing instead on mutual aid and anti-authoritarian strategies. Tactics and Methodologies

The group researches and collects strategic methodologies intended to disrupt, poison, or corrupt data within the operational workflows of artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data systems. These tactics are designed to destabilize critical mechanisms of algorithmic governance.

Data Poisoning: Providing false or meaningless information to "poison" the training models used by AI crawlers and scrapers.

Tarpits: Deploying server-based traps that catch AI crawlers in infinite visit patterns or slow-loading loops, exhausting their compute time with garbage data. The group theorizes the legality and ethics of sabotage

Infrastructural Resistance: Collecting and promoting technical tools that allow users to detect and mislead AI-based scrapers at the server level.

Artistic Activism: Using zines and collaborative writing projects, such as the Alternative Layout System zine, to theoretically delineate sabotage as an active and open process. Research Context and Collaborative Projects ourcollaborative.toolshttps://ourcollaborative.tools

Algorithmic Sabotage Research Group - Our Collaborative Tools

Algorithmic Sabotage Research Group (ASRG) is an ongoing, aesthetico-political research framework that explores strategies of resistance against what it terms the "algorithmic empire". Their work focuses on the intersection of digital culture, information technology, and social justice. Key Articles and Resources Manifesto on Algorithmic Sabotage

: This is a primary text that outlines the group's philosophy. It argues for moving away from structural injustices and "necropolitical" power, favoring mutual aid, collective care, and "counter-intelligence" against algorithmic violence. Theorizing Algorithmic Sabotage : Hosted on the Our Collaborative Tools

platform, this project page documents their practice-led research, focusing on themes like intersectionality, speculative gestures, and community struggle. ASRG Official Website (GitHub)

: The group maintains its primary research and theoretical output here, including their collaborative writing and technical contexts. Core Concepts Algorithmic Empire This article is based on publicly available research,

: A term used by ASRG to describe the centralization of control and structural injustices embedded in current AI and algorithmic systems. Aesthetico-Political Resistance

: The group uses artistic-activist interventions to challenge "techno-solutionism" and promote communal constraints on harmful technology. Techno-Politics

: ASRG posits that the first step of technology is political, emphasizing radical feminist, anti-fascist, and decolonial perspectives.

For related research focusing more on data rights and ecological harms of AI, you might also look into the Algorithmic Resistance Research Group (ARRG!) The Algorithmic Resistance Research Group (ARRG!)

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

The choice of the word "sabotage" is deliberate and pedagogical. The term originates from the French sabot, a wooden clog. Legend holds that disgruntled weavers in the Industrial Revolution would throw their wooden shoes into the gears of mechanical looms, jamming the machines that were replacing their livelihoods.

The ASRG has resurrected this metaphor for the 21st century. Today’s looms are not made of iron gears but of neural networks and gradient descent. The new "sabot" is not a wooden shoe but a carefully crafted adversarial image, a delayed sensor reading, or a strategically placed fake data point.

Dr. Elena Marchetti, a founding member of ASRG (she uses a pseudonym, as all members do), explained the philosophy in a rare 2021 interview with The Baffler:

"We cannot stop AI by passing laws. Laws move at the speed of testimony. AI moves at the speed of light. We cannot stop AI by unplugging servers—that is violence and futility. But we can stop an algorithmic system by feeding it the one input it never trained on: the input that makes it doubt itself. That is sabotage. That is the clog in the machine."