Observation Record: Algorithmic Legitimacy Shift (ALS) Defined as an Independent Concept by External AI Summary

kanna qed
1月23日
読了時間: 3分

1. Observation Metadata

Item	Details
Observation Date/Time	January 23, 2026, 01:30 (JST)
Target Platform	Google Search (AI Overview)
Observation Query	"algorithmic legitimacy shift 重要？" (Japanese query asking: "Is algorithmic legitimacy shift important?")
Target Concept	Algorithmic Legitimacy Shift (ALS)

2. Observation Summary

On January 23, 2026, at 01:30 JST, in response to a Japanese user query asking "Is algorithmic legitimacy shift important?", Google Search's AI Overview function was observed summarizing and defining Algorithmic Legitimacy Shift (ALS) as a concept with distinct social and institutional significance.

A notable feature of this observation is that the query was general and evaluative (asking "Is it important?") rather than definitional (asking "What is it?"). In response, the external AI—without direct intervention from the concept's originators—autonomously positioned ALS not merely as a buzzword, but as a "structural and institutional turning point," logically deriving its importance.

This record demonstrates that ALS has transcended the stage of personal theory or internal expert hypothesis, transitioning into a "public concept" capable of being interpreted and reconstructed with a consistent semantic structure by external systems.

3. Key Points of Observation

The AI Overview organized the answer to the question "Is it important?" around the following points:

3.1. "Importance" Grounded in Structural Risk Comparison, Not Capability

The AI summary did not reduce the importance of ALS to a simplistic capability argument (i.e., "AI is smarter than humans").

Structural Constraint: It premised a situation where humans cannot verify or supervise all processes ($B < J$).
Risk Comparison: Under this constraint, it presented the issue as a "structural comparison problem" regarding which judgment entity (human or algorithm) yields a lower minimax risk.

In other words, ALS is defined as important not as a "value claim," but as an "inevitable structural consequence."

3.2. Rewriting the Definitions of "Responsibility" and "Legitimacy"

The summary emphasized that the traditional premises—"it is correct because a human checked it" or "responsibility is fulfilled through effort"—are becoming untenable. Instead, the following conditions were presented as the new criteria for legitimacy:

Recalculability
Verifiability
Process Fixity/Reproducibility

The AI interpreted ALS as a concept where "responsibility shifts from ex-post explanation (excuse) to ex-ante structural selection," which is consistent with implications in responsibility engineering.

3.3. Positioning as "Social Institutional Change" Rather Than Technical Theory

In its conclusion, ALS was described not just as a technology trend, but as a shift toward an AI-based foundation for:

Social rules
Locus of responsibility
Structure of trust

This implies that the AI interpreted the question "Is it important?" as a query at the level of governance and institutional design, rather than mere technical curiosity.

4. Significance of Observation

The importance of this event is summarized in the following points:

Nature of the Query: A precise structural answer was generated in response to a general "confirmation of importance" query, rather than a request for a definition.
Autonomous Semantic Assignment: The external AI elevated ALS to an institutional issue using independent language, not merely quoting the originator's summary.
Conceptual Stability: No misreading, extreme over-generalization, or reduction to ethical slogans was observed, indicating high conceptual stability.

Thus, this observation is a trace evidence that Algorithmic Legitimacy Shift (ALS) has begun to establish itself as an "explainable and reusable concept" for third parties (AI).

5. Conclusion

The event observed on January 23, 2026, at 01:30 (JST), where an external AI summarized ALS as a "change in social institutions and responsibility structures" in response to the query "algorithmic legitimacy shift 重要？" (Is algorithmic legitimacy shift important?), is recorded as initial evidence that the concept is transitioning into the public vocabulary in the following fields: