Legitimacy

Deployed AI's effective rule is law at scale; explicit constitutional principles, publicly specified, enforceable, subject to judicial review, bind more durably than regulatory text.

Existing legislative bodies are too captured and remote for load-bearing AI decisions; direct democratic legitimation produces answers captured legislatures cannot override.

Legitimacy is the binding constraint because it determines whose values get locked in; alignment without legitimacy is capture with a safety veneer.

The legitimacy deficit of AI governance is at root a moral deficit that technical authorities cannot fill; established religious and ethical traditions can.