From Natural Equality to Constitutional Legitimacy: Locke’s Political Anthropology and Algorithmic Governance

The growing integration of artificial intelligence into governance challenges the conditions under which political authority can be considered legitimate. Algorithmic systems increasingly mediate decisions that shape citizens’ lives, yet their operations frequently bypass human judgment and obscure the justificatory basis of political authority. This article reinterprets John Locke’s political philosophy as a normative framework for assessing algorithmic authority. By reconstructing Locke’s account of reason, equality, consent, and fiduciary trust, it brings his political anthropology into dialogue with contemporary debates on algorithmic accountability and digital constitutionalism. The article argues that AI governance does not merely raise technical or regulatory problems; it threatens the conditions under which citizens can understand, evaluate, and contest the exercise of power. Because many AI systems operate through models that neither officials nor citizens can meaningfully interpret, they generate forms of automated prerogative that weaken the fiduciary relationship between governors and governed. Against this danger, the article advances a Lockean criterion for computational governance: algorithmic authority can be considered legitimate only insofar as it preserves intelligibility, fiduciary accountability, and contestability. Legitimacy cannot be restored through technical adjustment alone; it requires institutional conditions under which power remains publicly intelligible, politically answerable, and open to challenge by those subject to it.