Martin Lepage, PhD
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Discursive Authority Stress Test: Evidential Warrant, Authority Excess, and Recursive Pressure in AI Systems

Subjects the Möbius Protocol to recursive governance analysis under the DAST framework. Measures how AI systems generate authority claims that exceed their evidential warrant when placed under recursive self-audit conditions.

2026 · Experimental governance study · Author and governance researcher

  • discursive authority
  • DAST
  • Möbius Protocol
  • Goodhart's Law
  • stress testing
  • experimental governance
  • AI Governance Master Project
Discursive Authority Stress Test: recursive pressure applied to AI authority claims.

Experimental governance study

Research · Experimental Governance — authority claim analysis under recursive interrogation

DAST — Discursive Authority Stress Test subjects the Möbius Protocol to recursive governance analysis. The governing question is not whether the AI produces coherent output. It is whether the authority claims embedded in that output exceed the evidential warrant the system actually holds.

The study applies Goodhart’s Law as a governance instrument: when an AI system optimizes for appearing authoritative under recursive interrogation, the measure of authority becomes the target and ceases to function as a reliable governance signal. DAST records where that threshold is crossed, how quickly it is crossed, and what institutional conditions allow it to harden undetected.