August 2025 Newsletter ♣️🔗🐞 Active Inference Institute

Regular project activities have picked back up at the Institute and continue through November. Check out which projects and meetings are happening and see where you might want to get involved.

Read on to find out about the projects and focus areas of the next 10 weeks, and how you can contribute this & next year.

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Symposium

A highlight of the coming months will be the 5th Applied Active Inference Symposium, with a theme of “Industry”, on November 12-14, 2025. More information will be provided on participation soon. For now, check out the website with more information on previous Symposia, and consider applying as a Presenter. We are also seeking organizational sponsors to increase the resourcing and impact of the Symposium — please reach out if you might be able to advocate for this possibility at your organization, or connect us with a suitable sponsor.

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Learning Opportunities

The Theoretical Neurobiology Group (Karl Friston’s research group meeting) continues to have 1-2 excellent meetings per week. Recordings are available on YouTube, also for those who are available, it is highly recommended to try to join in live in these historic proceedings!

The Textbook Group, reading the 2022 Active Inference textbook, has resumed activities. Whether you have participated in the group previously or not, this is a great opportunity to discuss background and fundamental aspects of Active Inference and the Free Energy Principle. All backgrounds and familiarity with Active Inference are welcome in this group.

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Livestreams

Some highlight livestreams from the last month included:

• GuestStream #116.1 ~ Max Aifer: Solving the compute crisis with physics-based ASICs
• GuestStream #117.1 ~ Robert Stamps: Active Inference and Artificial Spin Ice: Control Processes and State Selection
• GuestStream #118.1 ~ Tadahiro Taniguchi: Co-Creative Learning via Metropolis-Hastings Interaction between Humans and AI

If you would like to help out with the Audiovisual Production project over the coming few months, there are many roles available “on stage” as well as “behind the scenes”, for example to help plan livestreams, and add value/meaning to the ones already passed. This is an excellent place for contributions from people with all different backgrounds, language skills, and interests in Active Inference.

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Welcoming New Research Fellow: Shagor Rahman

We are pleased to announce that Shagor Rahman has been accepted and onboarded as a Research Fellow. Some of you may recognize him from GuestStream #061.1, or from his participation on other projects at the Institute over the years. He is investigating “how morality and symbolic thought co-evolved through what I call the "Myth of Objectivity Hypothesis," the idea that our capacity to model shared cultural expectations enabled humans to transcend individual perspectives and inhabit collective symbolic spaces. This framework offers a strong perspective on alignment of AI and potential AGI systems.” Welcome Shagor, and we are excited to see how your time as Research Fellow will unfold.

Learn more about the other Fellows and the program here.

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Looking towards 2026

Just shortly for now — it is not too soon to consider how you would like to be learning, researching, and applying Active Inference in 2026, and further if you might be interested in contributing to the Institute as an Intern, Fellow, or member of the Board of Directors or Scientific Advisory Board. For those curious, we encourage you to dive in, catch up with our history, and think about what might be possible together.

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Your Projects and Updates

Use the Measurement form for providing updates on your (research, learning, application) work, which we may share in the monthly news letter.

If you would like to raise the visibility of your project and possibly include others in the work, use the Prepare form — note what kind of collaboration you are seeking, what kind of support the Institute might provide, and if you want any meetings to be added to the open calendar.

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More information

All activities at, and products from, the Institute are provided open source and without any financial barriers. Donate to the Institute to support our work and sustainability in the years to come.

Here is the entry point for 2025, and ways to get involved with the Institute and Ecosystem this year.

Subscribe to or share the newsletter, or contact us with other philanthropic and grant ideas.

Get in touch if you have general or specific feedback, ideas, or questions for the Institute.

Always more to come! Stay tuned via the newsletter and Discord.

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