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Active inference is a Bayesian framework for understanding biological intelligence. The underlying theory brings together perception and action under one single imperative: minimizing free energy. However, despite its theoretical utility in…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2020-10-23 Zafeirios Fountas , Noor Sajid , Pedro A. M. Mediano , Karl Friston

The active inference framework (AIF) is a promising new computational framework grounded in contemporary neuroscience that can produce human-like behavior through reward-based learning. In this study, we test the ability for the AIF to…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2022-11-21 Zhizhuo Yang , Gabriel J. Diaz , Brett R. Fajen , Reynold Bailey , Alexander Ororbia

Active Inference is an emerging framework providing a quantitative account of behavioral processes in neuroscience and a principled approach to decision-making under uncertainty. Its application to agency problems is natural, offering an…

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science · Computer Science 2026-04-15 Francesco Maria Mancinelli , Matteo Torzoni , Domenico Maisto , Francesco Donnarumma , Alberto Corigliano , Giovanni Pezzulo , Andrea Manzoni

Deep active inference has been proposed as a scalable approach to perception and action that deals with large policy and state spaces. However, current models are limited to fully observable domains. In this paper, we describe a deep active…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-08 Otto van der Himst , Pablo Lanillos

This work combines the free energy principle from cognitive neuroscience and the ensuing active inference dynamics with recent advances in variational inference in deep generative models, and evolution strategies to introduce the "deep…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2018-10-24 Kai Ueltzhöffer

With recent and rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), understanding the foundation of purposeful behaviour in autonomous agents is crucial for developing safe and efficient systems. While artificial neural networks have…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-08-12 Aswin Paul , Moein Khajehnejad , Forough Habibollahi , Brett J. Kagan , Adeel Razi

Active Inference is a closed-loop computational theoretical basis for understanding behaviour, based on agents with internal probabilistic generative models that encode their beliefs about how hidden states in their environment cause their…

Human-Computer Interaction · Computer Science 2024-12-20 Roderick Murray-Smith , John H. Williamson , Sebastian Stein

Inspired by the concept of active learning, we propose active inference$\unicode{x2013}$a methodology for statistical inference with machine-learning-assisted data collection. Assuming a budget on the number of labels that can be collected,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-09 Tijana Zrnic , Emmanuel J. Candès

Active inference, a corollary of the free energy principle, is a formal way of describing the behavior of certain kinds of random dynamical systems that have the appearance of sentience. In this chapter, we describe how active inference…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-10-11 Noor Sajid , Lancelot Da Costa , Thomas Parr , Karl Friston

Active inference is a normative framework for explaining behaviour under the free energy principle -- a theory of self-organisation originating in neuroscience. It specifies neuronal dynamics for state-estimation in terms of a descent on…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2021-10-26 Lancelot Da Costa , Thomas Parr , Biswa Sengupta , Karl Friston

We describe a framework of hybrid cognition by formulating a hybrid cognitive agent that performs hierarchical active inference across a human and a machine part. We suggest that, in addition to enhancing human cognitive functions with an…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-10-08 André Ofner , Sebastian Stober

The inverse statistical problem of finding direct interactions in complex networks is difficult. In the natural sciences, well-controlled perturbation experiments are widely used to probe the structure of complex networks. However, our…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2019-10-24 Jialong Jiang , David A. Sivak , Matt Thomson

Active inference is a state-of-the-art framework for modelling the brain that explains a wide range of mechanisms such as habit formation, dopaminergic discharge and curiosity. However, recent implementations suffer from an exponential…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-05-25 Théophile Champion , Howard Bowman , Marek Grześ

Active inference is a unifying theory for perception and action resting upon the idea that the brain maintains an internal model of the world by minimizing free energy. From a behavioral perspective, active inference agents can be seen as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-01-17 Pietro Mazzaglia , Tim Verbelen , Bart Dhoedt

Active inference introduces a theory describing action-perception loops via the minimisation of variational (and expected) free energy or, under simplifying assumptions, (weighted) prediction error. Recently, active inference has been…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2022-03-10 Manuel Baltieri , Christopher L. Buckley , Jelle Bruineberg

Active inference is emerging as a possible unifying theory of perception and action in cognitive and computational neuroscience. On this theory, perception is a process of inferring the causes of sensory data by minimising the error between…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2022-03-10 Manuel Baltieri , Christopher L. Buckley

Active inference has emerged as an alternative approach to control problems given its intuitive (probabilistic) formalism. However, despite its theoretical utility, computational implementations have largely been restricted to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-01 Aswin Paul , Noor Sajid , Manoj Gopalkrishnan , Adeel Razi

Given the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, understanding the foundations of intelligent behaviour is increasingly important. Active inference, regarded as a general theory of behaviour, offers a principled approach to probing…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-06-12 Aswin Paul , Takuya Isomura , Adeel Razi

Automated decision-making under uncertainty requires balancing exploitation and exploration. Classical methods treat these separately using heuristics, while Active Inference unifies them through Expected Free Energy (EFE) minimization.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-11-25 Wouter W. L. Nuijten , Mykola Lukashchuk

We develop an active inference route-planning method for the autonomous control of intelligent agents. The aim is to reconnoiter a geographical area to maintain a common operational picture. To achieve this, we construct an evidence map…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-21 Johan Schubert , Farzad Kamrani , Tove Gustavi