Structural Asymmetries in the EU AI Act: A Computational Forensic Analysis of Legislative Architecture
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: We present a quantitative structural analysis of the European Union ArtificialIntelligence Act using the TRACE Structural Audit Engine, a computational framework for topological and linguistic analysis of legislative texts. Across 113 articlesand 59,306 words of legal body text, we model the Act as a directed network of internal cross-references and measure centrality, bridge influence, vocabulary density,obligation-rights asymmetry, and term-distribution patterns. The results identifyseveral measurable structural concentrations: Article 5 functions as the primarystructural anchor of the regulation; Article 74 operates as a disproportionate bridgenode; the enforcement chapters concentrate punitive-coded language; and obligation markers substantially outnumber rights markers. A preliminary comparisonwith prior EU digital regulation suggests escalation in obligation density, althoughcross-corpus language asymmetry requires further validation. These findings do notimply legislative intent or normative illegitimacy; rather, they provide a computablebaseline for evaluating the internal architecture of digital regulation.
Author: Abella, Ruben
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7161733468
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