I don't think it is necessary - though all forms of intelligence we're aware of have bodies, that's just a fact about the hardware we run on. It seems plausibl

I don't think it is necessary - though all forms of intelligence we're aware of have bodies, that's just a fact about the hardware we run on. It seems plausible to me that we could create forms of intelligence that only run on a computer and have no bodies. I agree that we might find it difficult to recognize them as intelligent though because we're so conditioned to thinking of intelligence as embodied. An interesting thought experiment: suppose we create intelligences that are highly connected to one another and the whole internet through fast high bandwidth connections, and have effectively infinite memory. Would such intelligences think they were handicapped compared to us because they leak physical bodies? I'm not so sure!