The Codex of Authority

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of the Codex of Authority, a juridical metaphor for the compiled rule that governs without reference to a legislator. In predictive societies, authority is no longer produced by political will but by syntactic form. From automated drafts of the EU’s AI Act to blockchain smart contracts, institutional norms emerge as selfsufficient codices where legitimacy resides in structure rather than origin. By analyzing this shift, the article proposes a framework for understanding how legal authority becomes executable, impersonal, and detached from interpretation. Acknowledgment / Editorial Note This article is published with editorial permission from LeFortune Academic Imprint, under whose license the text will also appear as part of the upcoming book AI Syntactic Power and Legitimacy. The present version is an autonomous preprint, structurally complete and formally self-contained. No substantive modifications are expected between this edition and the print edition. LeFortune holds non-exclusive editorial rights for collective publication within the Grammars of Power series. Open access deposit on SSRN is authorized under that framework, if citation integrity and canonical links to related works (SSRN: 10.2139/ssrn.4841065, 10.2139/ssrn.4862741, 10.2139/ssrn.4877266) are maintained. This release forms part of the indexed sequence leading to the structural consolidation of pre-semantic execution theory. Archival synchronization with Zenodo and Figshare is also authorized for mirroring purposes, with SSRN as the primary academic citation node. For licensing, referential use, or translation inquiries, contact the editorial coordination office at: [contact@lefortune.org]

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