Towards Enabling An Artificial Self-Construction Software Life-cycle via Autopoietic Architectures

2026-04-15

AI Summary

This work proposes a novel architectural paradigm for software engineering that enables self-construction, self-maintenance, and autonomous evolution by integrating autopoietic theory—inspired by artificial life and exemplified by frameworks such as Psi-Arch—with foundational models. Traditional software development life cycles heavily rely on human intervention and struggle to achieve genuine autonomy. By leveraging the code comprehension and reasoning capabilities of foundational models, the proposed framework systematically overcomes current bottlenecks in SDLC automation. It articulates the core challenges inherent in software self-construction and establishes a theoretical foundation for a new paradigm of self-sustaining, continuously evolving software systems, thereby opening promising avenues for future research.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Deep Neural Architectures and Foundation Models
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Agent Architectures
• Humans and AI: Other Foundations of Human Computation & AI

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Foundation models and LLMs for Web-related graphs
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution

Abstract

Software engineering research has focused on automating maintenance and evolution processes to reduce costs and improve reliability. The emergence of foundation models (FMs) with strong code understanding and reasoning abilities offers new opportunities for autonomous software behavior. Inspired by Artificial Life (ALife), we propose a fundamental shift in the Software Development Life-Cycle (SDLC) by introducing self-construction mechanisms that enable software to evolve and maintain autonomously. This position paper explores the potential of Autopoietic Architectures, specifically Psi-Arch, as a foundational framework for self-constructing software. We first analyze the limitations of traditional maintenance approaches and identify gaps in current SDLC automation. Subsequently, we outline the core challenges in achieving self-construction, including the integration of foundation-model-based reasoning units and the establishment of novel architectural paradigms. Although this paper does not present a definitive solution, it seeks to catalyze discourse and inspire research toward a new paradigm in software engineering, one in which self-constructing software represents the next frontier in SDLC automation.

Problem

• self-construction
• software life-cycle
• autopoietic architectures
• foundation models
• autonomous software

Innovation

• Autopoietic Architectures
• Self-Construction
• Foundation Models
• Software Development Life-Cycle
• Artificial Life