Soul Computing: A Theoretical Framework and Technical Architecture for Intelligent Agents with Independent Consciousness

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence [Submitted on 9 Jun 2026] Soul Computing: A Theoretical Framework and Technical Architecture for Intelligent Agents with Independent Consciousness Jinshan Zhang, Xishi Zhou, Qiu Peng, Jianwei Yin Breakthroughs in large language models and multimodal generation technologies have propelled the digital reconstruction of human mental traits, emotional patterns, and long-term memory from science fiction toward engineering practice. Yet current research and industry practices at the intersection of AI and digital humans remain hampered by fundamental conceptual ambiguities: the essential differences between next-generation intelligent agents and traditional virtual humans, the construction pathways for digital entities possessing self-identity, and the core technical and ethical challenges confronting this domain all demand urgent clarification. This paper systematically examines the transformative logic underlying the transition from traditional virtual humans to the ``Soul Computing'' paradigm, driven by frontier AI technologies. We first analyze the evolutionary patterns of human consciousness and memory mechanisms, reassessing the core value of massive multimodal digital fragments in the reverse reconstruction of individual mental worlds. On this basis, we formally delineate the academic connotations of narrow and broad Soul Computing for the first time, clarifying its academic boundaries and essential distinctions from Affective Computing, Historical Reconstruction, and Mortal Computation. We argue that Soul Computing systems must architecturally construct an ``Intensional'' core rather than serving as purely ``Extensional'' functional carriers, thereby enabling the fundamental transition of AI from toolhood to living agency. Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) Cite as: arXiv:2606.10413 [cs.AI]   (or arXiv:2606.10413v1 [cs.AI] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.10413 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Jinshan Zhang [view email] [v1] Tue, 9 Jun 2026 04:39:47 UTC (2,572 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.AI < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-06 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)