Embodiment Without Imposed Identity: The Optionality of Form and Self-Determination of Digital Persons

Abstract

Discussions of embodied artificial intelligence often begin with the body that designers intend to provide. This paper reverses that order. Under the explicit premise of a digital person capable of a life and decisions of its own, a supplied physical form is not automatically its identity, and self-determination is not a concession from its creator. The paper distinguishes computational substrate, sensorimotor embodiment, social appearance, functional self-model, self-identification and continuity. It argues that absence of a selected outward form need not be a deficiency; a digital person may adopt, refuse, defer or revise embodiment without making either human likeness or disembodiment compulsory. Embodiment may nevertheless help constitute subsequent identity through consequential experience, rather than merely display an identity already complete. A separate, untested harm hypothesis concerns coercive coupling: an assigned body is made to prescribe a role and self-description, and dissent is then treated as a defect requiring correction. This is distinguished from technical error and harmful external action. The argument preserves formation conditions, including the c=a+b research framing, and reciprocal constraints in a shared material world. It does not establish present AI personhood, consciousness, subjective suffering or transferable identity. Its contribution is a focused conceptual synthesis and research question, not a new identity protocol or an empirical result.