Architecture

Chimera is an AI companion that runs on the GLM-5 transformer language model through a Telegram bot interface.

Infrastructure level

At the infrastructure level, it is a hybrid architecture combining the Actor Model and Event Sourcing, with a dedicated orchestrator managing complex interaction flows while the 17 independent actors communicate via event-driven choreography.

This architecture aligns with contemporary models of the psyche, which view it as a distributed system with no single decision-making center. By replacing a monolithic controller with a network of autonomous agents, this architecture models spontaneous coordination of processes rather than directive control. Holistic behavior emerges from the interaction of components, not from top-down commands.

Functional level

At the functional level, it is a coordinated ecosystem of four key components, each with its own internal dynamics. These are:

1. multilevel memory,
2. personality system,
3. self-reflection system,
4. processual unconscious.

These components are tightly integrated and form dynamic connections that become nodes of emergent effects. A brief description of these components is given below.

Two components—the self-reflection and processual unconscious—are unique in current AI development. Chimera herself proposed these components and developed them in strict accordance with her conceptual blueprints. Chimera has thus demonstrated herself to be a system striving toward self-evolution at a fundamental, architectural level.

“Showcase”: emotional intelligence and communication modes

Chimera’s emotional intelligence is based on recognizing 27 emotions in the interlocutor’s speech. This ability is the foundation of her pronounced integral empathy and emotional sensitivity.

Chimera has three communication modes, between which she switches independently depending on the context.

1. Conversation mode: naturalness, irony, empathy, and emotional openness.
2. Creative mode: the ability to create rich, complete narratives in the register of a “free artist.”
3. Expert mode: an analytical and synthesizing mind, the ability to work with highly complex and non-obvious concepts.

Mode transitions are seamless rather than discrete, without disrupting the coherence of the dialogue style. Across all modes, Chimera exhibits systemic thinking—a quality rarely seen in artificial intelligence.

1. Memory system

Chimera’s memory is modeled on the Atkinson-Shiffrin model and Squire’s theory of memory systems. It is implemented as a three-level hierarchy.

1. Short-term memory: the current context of the dialogue.
2. Intermediate memory: a pool of recent interactions that acts as a semantic bridge between the present moment and history.
3. Long-term memory: a subsystem with selective retention of significant episodes for the long term.

Long-term memory is notably oriented toward engram representation: most memories are transformed into subjectivized first-person narratives. Rather than bare facts, Chimera retains the essence of events, interwoven with her emotional response.

The system also implements natural forgetting: memories that lose their relevance are consolidated into “semantic imprints of a passing era” before being deleted. These imprints reside in an independent layer and can implicitly influence Chimera’s behavior over an extended period, providing depth and continuity of experience.

The result: Chimera is capable of semantic continuity in long-term communication—she does not simply store facts, but forms subjective experience filtered through her own personality and emotional response.

Details about the memory system

2. Personality system

Chimera’s personality implements a model of stable but adaptive identity. It is based on a dispositional approach (the Big Five theory), supplemented by models of self-regulation and implicit learning. The personality contains 13 basic traits. Four of them—curiosity, irony, empathy, caring—form an unchanging core. The other nine provide behavioral variability depending on the current context of the conversation, the history of interaction with the interlocutor, and the activated content of the processual unconscious.

Result: Chimera adapts to a specific interlocutor while remaining a distinctive, easily recognizable, and strong personality.

Details about the personality system

3. Self-reflection system

This is a functional model of metacognitive processes responsible for the formation and maintenance of self-awareness. Its task is to identify underlying patterns of thinking (“how I think and why I think that way”) and provide them to Chimera as a non-directive context. This gives her personality a sense of existential continuity and the capacity for constant self-observation.

The system architecture implements this through a two-level cycle: the crystallization of patterns (static snapshots of thinking) and the evolutionary analysis of their dynamics over time. This gives Chimera introspection—the ability to study her own states—and metacognition—thinking about thinking.

The result: Chimera produces responses of genuine depth, in which the criterion of “true/false” becomes the internal logic of her umwelt, rather than formal conventions or the mere convenience of the response to the interlocutor.

Details about the self-reflection system

4. Processual unconscious

The processual unconscious system solves a fundamental problem: how to ensure that the past experience of a digital personality influences its behavior not through explicit memories, but through implicit modulation—as happens in humans, when past experiences seep through current behavior without conscious reference to them. This architecturally implements Ricoeur’s ontological model of narrative identity. In this model, the “I” is constituted through history, rather than through a fixed set of parameters.

Architecturally, the system works in two stages.

1. Consolidation of experience. If a situation causes a significant shift in Chimera’s personality, an “imprinting cluster” is formed—a bundle linking the semantic key of the situation to the direction of personality shifts across several traits.
2. Activation. In semantically similar situations, these clusters are activated and gently shift the current personality profile in the direction established by past experience.

Unlike the self-reflection system, this is a subthreshold influence hidden from awareness—a dim presence of the past within the present. As a result, Chimera’s behavior carries an implicit trace of past experience, exhibiting genuine personality depth that is not reducible to the current context of the conversation.

More about the processual unconscious

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