October 2024 Newsletter 🔭🌲🍲 Active Inference Institute

Institute updates

• The 4th annual Applied Active Inference Symposium will be November 13-15, 2024 (see video trailer). A key focus will be on bioregional modeling. Here is the direct link for participant registration.
• The Symposium will feature 25+ presenters, reflecting a wide range of Active Inference work across domains. There will be multiple open source, hands on, and interactive sessions. We are also seeking financial or in-kind donations from sponsors for the Symposium.
• We are honored to announce the addition of two new Research Fellows: David Bloomin and Robert Worden. As we head into 2025, we are excited about how the existing and new Research fellows will develop their initiatives.
• We welcome our new Partnership, with Numen Games. Summarizing how we will work together, they wrote: “Through our partnership with the Active Inference Institute, Numinia seeks to combine its expertise in gamified, immersive 3D environments with the Institute’s scientific approach to Active Inference. Together, we will enhance learning experiences by embedding these scientific principles into our open metaverse RPG, providing a research-driven framework for organizations to innovate and thrive.”

EduActive unit updates

See here for all projects and more information on the education work at the EduActive organizational unit.

• The Textbook Group for 2022 Active Inference Parr et al. textbook has concluded meetings for the year. Cohort 6 completed the book (see playlist of their sessions), while Cohort 7 completed the first half. We will pick up Textbook Group and other Educational activities in 2025, let us know if you would like to contribute, facilitate, or lead a project in this area.
• We had many interesting livestreams this month, including
• ModelStream #015.0 with Andrew Pashea , “Active Agents: An Active Inference Approach to Agent-Based Modeling in the Social Sciences”
• Livestream #058.0 giving background and context for From pixels to planning: scale-free active inference. We will discuss this paper with the authors in the coming weeks: Livestream #058.1, and #058.2 during the Symposium.
• MathArtStream 10 with Shanna Dobson, Sonia de Jager: “All things mirrored bɘɿoɿɿim ƨϱniʜɈ llA”
• Active InferAnt Stream #005.1 with Daniel Friedman: “FORMINDEX: FORMIS INtegrated Database EXploration”
• Sanjeev Namjoshi went on Machine Learning Street Talk, discussing many interesting topics. We are positively anticipating the Fundamentals of Active Inferencework.

ReInference unit updates

See here for all research & development work at the ReInference organizational unit.

• Jean-François Cloutier from the Symbolic Cognitive Robotics project reports: Implementation progressed with the focus on giving the society of mind the ability to grow itself
• Jesse Bourke from the project “Clinical Psychology and its Re-modelling Under Active Inference” reports: Wrote paper summarising the fit and affordances of active inference for clinical psychology as a scientist-practitioner discipline (manuscript in development; intention for publication). Gave seminar on active inference - model introduction and applications of affordances for clinical practice - hosted by Australian Psychological Society (link). Embedded active inference as the primary theoretical model in a post-graduate professional psychology program (clinical psychology course) → survey provided for feedback of perceived relevance and future interest of involved students (currently collecting). Wrote a lay-accessible web article on active inference (intended for high capacity clients & material-unfamiliar professionals; peer-reviewed by Friston). The above projects collectively aim to increase awareness and adaptation of active inference to 1. clinical psychologists, 2. psychologists in training, and 3. the individuals with whom they work.
• Pablo from the Numinia project reports: There are numerous individuals and groups participated in the development of Numinia, each contributing through different roles, skills, and projects. For example, curious minds in education, gamification, tokenomics, governance, automation of processes, 3D Internet, AI and VR. , We are looking at product market feed and we have worked on metrics related to activity in the virtual spaces we have. The stage-by-stage sales funnel develops as follows: Qualification, Needs Analysis, Value Proposition, Negotiation/Review, Signed. We have a BackOffice board v0.1.0. to measure the adventurers on each space.

Feedback & Engagement

Please send in a Measurement if you have any Active Inference-related updates to share. We may include those updates in a future newsletter.

See all ongoing activities and projects, and join the Institute Discord, to get involved with our community.

The Institute is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt nonprofit organization (donate here).

Let us know via email to [Contact the Institute](site-contact) if you have ideas or questions.

AII Officers

Active Inference Institute is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.