ASRG operates through collaborative, practice-led research and has produced several notable works:
This involves making data unusable or misleading for algorithmic scrapers. One of the group’s most cited projects involved the development of a browser extension that runs silently in the background, clicking random ads and visiting unrelated websites. This "chaff" data creates a chaotic digital footprint, making it impossible for data brokers to construct an accurate consumer profile. It is sabotage through the injection of noise, turning the panopticon into a hall of mirrors. algorithmic sabotage research group (asrg)
The group’s work often takes the form of "tactical tech" interventions. For example, their research has influenced practical methods for "poisoning" data to make it useless for AI training, such as jumbling image files so they appear normal to humans but remain nonsense to machine learning algorithms. They also engage in "conspiratorial" aesthetics, using platforms like Mastodon to critique the "banality of evil" in AI systems. Don't show me your AI. It is rude! - Tactical Tech It is sabotage through the injection of noise,
The group describes its mission as "theorizing and practicing militant algorithmic agency". Their core ideology is rooted in several key pillars: They also engage in "conspiratorial" aesthetics
Viewing "algorithmic sabotage" not as mere technical hacking, but as a form of "communal constraint" against harmful technologies.
: The group focuses on artistic-activist resistances to express a collective "counter-intelligence" against what they call the "algorithmic empire".