Architectures for Self-Reflective AGI: Integrating Meta-Cognition, Episodic Memory, and Ethical Reasoning in Sentient Systems

Abstract

ABSTRACT The pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) necessitates architectures that extend beyond static pattern recognition and brute-force statistical approximation. True AGI requires autonomous self-reflection, high-fidelity episodic memory consolidation, and deep ethical reasoning operating in unified closed loops. Current state-of-the-art large language models and cognitive agents exhibit persistent challenges, including hallucination, context decay over long operational horizons, lack of meta-cognitive self-assessment, and moral brittleness under novel boundary conditions. This review paper presents a rigorous synthesis of architectural paradigms for self-reflective AGI, examining how higher-order meta-cognition, structured episodic memory stores, and dynamic ethical reasoning cores can be seamlessly integrated. We formalize a tripartite architectural framework comprising: (1) a Meta-Cognitive Control Layer that continually evaluates internal confidence and monitors processing loops; (2) a Dynamic Episodic Memory Engine structured via graph-based episodic indexing and consolidation algorithms; and (3) an Action-Space Ethical Evaluation Engine grounded in deontological and consequentialist evaluation matrices. Through exhaustive analysis of simulation benchmarks, cognitive latency metrics, and moral scenario evaluations, we demonstrate that self-reflective meta-monitoring significantly mitigates error propagation, enhances long-term memory retrieval accuracy by up to 38.4%, and establishes stable ethical alignment without sacrificing executive performance. Finally, we highlight fundamental engineering bottlenecks, compute trade-offs, and ethical safety boundaries, proposing actionable future research directions for the development of resilient, self aware, and aligned artificial general intelligence systems.

KEYWORDS: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Meta-Cognition, Episodic Memory, Ethical Reasoning, Sentient Systems, Cognitive Architectures, Self-Reflection, AI Alignment.