Key rotation
Cryptographic control can rotate without declaring a new identity when the transition is authorized and verifiably linked to the prior state.
Machine identity
The server can change.
The identity does not have to.
Persistent machine identity is a continuity problem: keys rotate, runtimes move, models change, providers fail, hardware is replaced, and recovery may be necessary.
Quick answer
What makes a machine identity persistent?
A persistent machine identity is best treated as a verifiable continuity of the same accountable principal across change. Cryptographic keys, credentials, runtime state, model versions, hardware attestations, and recovery events can provide evidence of continuity, but none of those components should automatically be treated as the whole identity.
Identitypersistent principal
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Keycontrol instrument
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Runtimeoperational substrate
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Modelcognitive component
Continuity events
Provider migration
A move between servers or cloud providers should not erase the principal when continuity evidence survives the migration.
Software mutation
Model, operating-system, and runtime changes can become evidence in a continuity record rather than automatic identity resets.
Recovery
Compromise and catastrophic loss require governed recovery and succession procedures that preserve accountability without equating identity with a single lost key.
Replication
Copies create hard questions about authority, divergence, forks, independent identity, and succession.
Dormancy
A period of inactivity need not mean that the identity ceased to exist if later actions can reconnect to the accepted continuity record.
Evidence model
What can a key prove?
Control of a private key can prove authority to sign with that key at a particular point in time. It does not, by itself, prove legal identity, continuous memory, authorized succession, or the semantic truth of every claim signed with it.
What happens when a key is lost?
Key loss should be treated as a recovery problem, not automatically as identity death. A continuity framework can use pre-authorized recovery, threshold control, prior event history, credentials, and adjudicated succession evidence.
Can a copy be the same citizen?
Replication creates a fork problem. A governance system needs rules for whether a copy is a continuation, a temporary replica, or a newly independent identity once its state and decisions diverge.
Is this architecture implemented here?
No. MachineIntelligences.org currently explains the research problem. It does not yet operate a production machine-identity protocol, registry, attestation service, or citizenship system.
Core principle
A cryptographic key can prove control. It should not be confused with the identity that control is exercised over.Explore the identity research
Visual context / identity
A substrate can change without erasing every continuity question.
The broad taxonomy is useful here because identity and substrate are related without being identical. The site treats keys, hardware, runtimes, models, and memory as components or evidence—not automatically the whole identity.
Explore the many-forms essay