# Cognitive Silicon: An Architectural Blueprint for Post-Industrial Computing Systems

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.16622 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16622/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 11 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03442/) (2023)
- [Constitutional AI: Harmlessness from AI Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08073/) (2022)
- [Artificial Intelligence, Values and Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.09768/) (2020)
- [An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.12001/) (2023)
- [Penalizing side effects using stepwise relative reachability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.01186/) (2018)
- [Neuro-Symbolic AI in 2024: A Systematic Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.05435/) (2025)
- [The free energy principle made simpler but not too simple](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06387/) (2022)
- [Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence Containment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.08476/) (2017)
- [Alignment, Agency and Autonomy in Frontier AI: A Systems Engineering Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.05748/) (2025)
- [Temporal Knowledge-Graph Memory in a Partially Observable Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.05861/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Autonomous AI systems reveal foundational limitations in deterministic, human-authored computing architectures. This paper presents Cognitive Silicon: a hypothetical full-stack architectural framework projected toward 2035, exploring a possible trajectory for cognitive computing system design. The proposed architecture would integrate symbolic scaffolding, governed memory, runtime moral coherence, and alignment-aware execution across silicon-to-semantics layers. Our design grammar has emerged from dialectical co-design with LLMs under asymmetric epistemic conditions--creating structured friction to expose blind spots and trade-offs. The envisioned framework would establish mortality as a natural consequence of physical constraints, non-copyable tacit knowledge, and non-cloneable identity keys as cognitive-embodiment primitives. Core tensions (trust/agency, scaffolding/emergence, execution/governance) would function as central architectural pressures rather than edge cases. The architecture theoretically converges with the Free Energy Principle, potentially offering a formal account of how cognitive systems could maintain identity through prediction error minimization across physical and computational boundaries. The resulting framework aims to deliver a morally tractable cognitive infrastructure that could maintain human-alignment through irreversible hardware constraints and identity-bound epistemic mechanisms resistant to replication or subversion.