Recursive Legitimacy: How Synthetic Systems Manufacture Consent

In an era defined by distributed cognition and automated systems, legitimacy is increasingly manufactured by machines rather than deliberative institutions. This paper examines how synthetic systems—such as algorithmic platforms, credit scoring tools, and predictive governance models—acquire legitimacy recursively, through ambient use and feedback, rather than explicit consent. We argue that this form of legitimacy is an early signal of AGI-latent structures and propose a framework for understanding governance under non-human recursion