Can AI Have a Soul? A Thomistic Philosophical Inquiry

The question of whether artificial intelligence can possess a soul is fundamentally a philosophical one, and to approach it through the lens of Thomism requires a precise understanding of what the soul signifies within this tradition. For St. Thomas Aquinas, the soul (anima) is not merely a ghost in the machine, nor is it distinct from the body in the Cartesian sense of two separate substances interacting. Instead, the soul is