Identity from the Outside: A Conceptual Framework and Research Program for AI Personality Clones

Abstract

arXiv:2608.11225v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI "personality clones" force a re-examination of personal identity in operational terms. Setting aside the hard problem of consciousness, we approach identity through the indiscernibility of manifestations, as assessed by an observer over a duration. We distinguish three criteria that "identity" conflates: fidelity to a target person, generic human-likeness, and individuality. We propose a six-term factorization of observed identity (substrate, di