Legitimacy
The Legitimacy
A simple rule:
If a process cannot be performed honestly by a human, it must not be automated.
Automation does not create legitimacy.
It only removes friction.
For decades, institutions relied on human processes to:
- ask questions
- record answers
- note absence
- preserve uncertainty
- justify decisions after the fact
These processes were slow, inconsistent, and expensive — but they were legible.
Their inconsistency was a human limitation, not an epistemic failure. What mattered was that the reasoning could be shown.
Modern AI systems reverse this order:
they automate first, and attempt to justify later.
Ary does the opposite.
Before anything is automated, we ask:
- Can this be done manually?
- Can it be done without inference?
- Can absence be preserved honestly?
- Can the record survive scrutiny years later?
If the answer is no, we refuse to automate it.
This is not a limitation.
It is the condition for scale.
Accountability is not the opposite of progress.
It is the prerequisite for it.