Teun 🌏 ❤️ 🏳️🌈 🇺🇦 🇵🇸What is the most damage one can do to AI crawlers if all one has access to is robots.txt and custom CSS? Asking for a friend.
Ma va' là![Publication] From Human to Binary and Back: On the Need to Explain and Understand Digital Machines in the Humanities
The issue vol. 5 no. 1 (2025), titled “Human-Centred AI in the Translation Industry. Questions on Ethics, Creativity and Sustainability”, of the Yearbook of Translational Hermeneutics is out. It is edited by prof. Katharina Walter and prof. Marco Agnetta, and it includes my article “From Human to Binary and Back: On the Need to Explain and Understand Digital Machines in the Humanities“, a paper that I first presented at the conference “Creativity and Translation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” at the University of Innsbruck in January 2024.
As the editors write in the introduction, “from different perspectives, the contributions gathered here aim to prevent the discussion on AI from being reduced to questions of technical feasibility. Instead, they frame the de-bate on AI as a profoundly human and societal one”.
In the article I argue that we need to deepen our knowledge of the digital machines we use and to develop critical approaches in our research, translation and creative practices, highlighting theoretical-practical uses from a socio-technical perspective.
Here is the abstract:
This article aims to bring attention to some usually overlooked aspects of the relationship between humans and complex digital technologies. Before engaging with artificial intelligence (AI), it is indeed pivotal to address some key questions about it. Specifically, I will try to focus on our ability to understand how AI technologies work and determine creative and critical uses we can make of them. To do so, I will first discuss problems associated with using the current definitions of AI and suggest that we should make a creative effort to re-translate these terms in order to find better-suited expressions. I will call attention to the need for a different kind of translation, which negotiates between what machines do and what we can understand about them, because one of the biggest challenges of machine learning is to make the internal processes explainable and understandable for us humans. I will close with elaborations on some creative forms of interaction with language models and image models which support artists, writers and creators (who do not want to see their work stolen by AI crawlers and used to train datasets), with the overall goal of building an ethical, critical and sustainable relationship between humans and digital machines.
#AI #algorithmicSabotage #antiComputing #artificialIntelligence #dataPoisoning #digitalHumanities #KatharinaWalter #MarcoAgnetta #translation #YearbookOfTranslationalHermeneutics
Adrianpost.lurk.org is on the list as well. that was to be expected, but still kind of a shitty feeling. i’ll set automatically deleting old posts to three seconds or something
mr.w0bb1t (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image #Meta has scraped content from tldr.nettime.org for their AI. It’s one of ~100,000 top websites reportedly used to train Meta’s proprietary AI models. 👉🏻 https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/meta-facebook-tech-copyright-privacy-whistleblower
keefI got a little bit annoyed at a bot hoovering up all the large zip files of lossless music from various websites I run. I may have slightly overreacted...
https://evilgeniusrobot.uk/posts/an-evil-genius-robot.html
Still it's finally a good use of that domain name I've had for a few years now!
Srijit Kumar BhadraThe Manifesto on "Algorithmic Sabotage" [1] is a text that provides a set of principles and techniques for combating and undermining the influence and impact of harmful algorithms on society.
The manifesto is organised into ten propositions that address various areas of algorithmic sabotage. These arguments range from arguing for a sort of counter-power based on community strength to emphasising the value of solidarity and mutual aid over individual profit. It also emphasises the importance of challenging the capitalist ideology that lives on human misery by committing acts of subversion against modern forms of algorithmic tyranny.
The manifesto encourages people to take action against harmful or oppressive algorithms, rather than passively accepting them. This can include taking direct action, such as disrupting or disabling these algorithms, as well as more indirect measures, such as raising awareness and educating others about the issues.
The review of the Manifesto on "Algorithmic Sabotage" by Dwayne Monroe [2] is worth reading.
1. https://algorithmic-sabotage.github.io/asrg/manifesto-on-algorithmic_sabotage/
2. https://monroelab.com/2024/04/02/manifesto-on-algorithmic-sabotage-a-review/
Manifesto on “Algorithmic Sabotage”
The “Manifesto” articulates a systematically structured sequence of ten distinct propositions, enumerated from 0 to 9, each delineating the underlying principles, strategic approaches, and aesthetic manifestations that shape the critical concept of “algorithmic sabotage” within the expansive and intricately interwoven frameworks of digital culture and information technology.
Exist Otherwise Has Movedis #ExperimentalWriting dead?
“You snap out of it! VANESSA: - Oh, those just get me psychotic! VANESSA: - Park. BARRY: - I don't think these are cut flowers with no water. They'll never make it. BARRY: I might be. It all depends on what 0900 means. (The scene switches and Barry look up at the flower, shooting tubes that suck up the nectar to the point of weakness!”
This was written by software. Better than that, it was written as #AlgorithmicSabotage. Check it out...
Bastian Greshake TzovarasDo you want to engage in algorithmic sabotage of "AI" scrapers? But you have a static website on something like @Codeberg (or GitHub) Pages that makes this hard?
I've written up how I've setup @marcusb's "quixotic" for that even if you can't change any webserver settings.
I'd love for people to try it themselves and give some feedback on how this approach could be better.
/cc @asrg
Algorithmic sabotage for static sites
tl;dr: Here’s a how-to for adding some “AI”-poison to your static site that’s hosted on Codeberg Pages (or GitHub Pages). I’d appreciate some feedback on if this is useful/how it could be improved. If you’re running any type of website in 2025, you’ll likely be suffering from the impact of...
katzenberger 🇺🇦(3/5) There is no "societal refusal to take on the responsibilities of governing our increasingly complex commons", it's just that what you describe as "Facebook but open-source and federated" looks like the much better alternative for many, despite it also being differently bad, as you say. It is both the acknowledgment that you "can't fix people problems" with software (that you should even engage in #AlgorithmicSabotage); and that the existence of "many places" may not resolve them all, but is required as a safeguard against global feasibility fantasies.
We try to partially solve these problems by strategies leaning on the principle of subsidiarity that has both served humans well, with respect to protecting smaller entities from being steamrolled by larger ones; and done harm, too, by giving power without accountability, in many cases.
To use an (unappetizing) image: "global solutions" lead to everybody walking up to their ankles in manure, because a majority decided "they" can tolerate it, so "everybody" can, up to that height. "Federated" solutions lead to a pattern of absolute cesspits in some places, and relatively dry floors in others. Establishing boundaries, also against "design globalists" infringing upon subsidiarity, is crucial. Less figuratively, my instinct tells me to e.g. prefer a landscape with some defederated Nazi server instances over a landscape with Nazis spilling to everywhere, that are allowed to say barely legal things, because of the "barely".
Bağlama« Le Manifeste sur le “Sabotage algorithmique” est composé de dix énoncés, numérotés de 0 à 9, qui définissent les principes sous-jacents, les approches stratégiques et les manifestations esthétiques de la notion critique de ”Sabotage algorithmique” dans le cadre de la culture numérique et de la technologie de l’information. L’objectif du texte n’est pas seulement une diffusion théorique de la résistance et du refus algorithmiques militants, mais la diffusion d'une théorie/critique radicale qui découle de l’énergie d’un désir insurrectionnel. Le Manifeste sur le “Sabotage algorithmique” représente la marche implacable d’une théorie politique qui transforme constamment et de manière bidirectionnelle le discours en praxis afin de déclarer sa présence dans la lutte de libération. »
⭕ https://algorithmic-sabotage.github.io/asrg/manifesto-on-algorithmic_sabotage/
#SabotageAlgorithmique #AlgorithmicSabotage #esthetique #resistance #liberation @asrg
Manifesto on “Algorithmic Sabotage”
The “Manifesto” articulates a systematically structured sequence of ten distinct propositions, enumerated from 0 to 9, each delineating the underlying principles, strategic approaches, and aesthetic manifestations that shape the critical concept of “algorithmic sabotage” within the expansive and intricately interwoven frameworks of digital culture and information technology.
»0. “Algorithmic Sabotage” is a figure of techno-disobedience for the militancy that’s absent from technology critique.
[…]
«
https://algorithmic-sabotage.github.io/asrg/manifesto-on-algorithmic_sabotage/
Manifesto on “Algorithmic Sabotage”
The “Manifesto” articulates a systematically structured sequence of ten distinct propositions, enumerated from 0 to 9, each delineating the underlying principles, strategic approaches, and aesthetic manifestations that shape the critical concept of “algorithmic sabotage” within the expansive and intricately interwoven frameworks of digital culture and information technology.