Active Inference

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Overview

Active inference models agents as maintaining beliefs about hidden states and choosing actions that both meet preferred outcomes and reduce uncertainty. Common approaches use probabilistic generative models, variational message passing, and expected-free-energy planning, with extensions for hierarchical control, learned world models, and allocation of sensory precision. Researchers apply these ideas to robotics, navigation, social interaction, health, and biological behavior, evaluating them in tasks such as mazes, control simulations, and real-world systems. A central open tension is how to define and calibrate epistemic value so information seeking supports reliable goal achievement without excessive exploration, while keeping inference scalable and models testable.

Latest papers

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42 papers9 papers in the last four weeks, up 200% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Active Inference: A method for Phenotyping Agency in AI systems?

    Apr 25, 2026Philip Wilson, Axel Constant, Mahault Albarracin +4Active InferenceAI Governance

    Independent Researcher · Department of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9RH, UK · Laboratoire d’Analyse Cognitive de l’Information, Université du Québec à Montréal, Québec, Canada +4

  2. Resolving space-sharing conflicts in road user interactions through uncertainty reduction: An active inference-based computational model

    Apr 21, 2026Julian F. Schumann, Johan Engström, Ran Wei +3Collision AvoidanceIntelligent Transportation Systems

    Department of Cognitive Robotics, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands · Waymo LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA

  3. Hierarchical Active Inference using Successor Representations

    Apr 17, 2026Prashant Rangarajan, Rajesh P. N. RaoActive InferenceHierarchical RL

    Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

  4. Active Inference with a Self-Prior in the Mirror-Mark Task

    Apr 2, 2026Dongmin Kim, Hoshinori Kanazawa, Yasuo KuniyoshiComputational Cognitive ModelingActive Inference

    Laboratory for Intelligent Systems and Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

  5. Active Inference Agency Formalization, Metrics, and Convergence Assessments

    Mar 22, 2026Eduard KapelkoAI Agent SafetyActive Inference

  6. Active Inference for Physical AI Agents -- An Engineering Perspective

    Mar 21, 2026Bert de VriesActive InferenceEmbodied AI

    Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands

  7. Authority-Level Priors: An Under-Specified Constraint in Hierarchical Predictive Processing

    Mar 19, 2026Marcy PalejovaPredictive CodingActive Inference

    Anglia Ruskin University

  8. Active Inference for Micro-Gesture Recognition: EFE-Guided Temporal Sampling and Adaptive Learning

    Mar 8, 2026Weijia Feng, Jingyu Yang, Ruojia Zhang +7Micro-Gesture RecognitionGesture Recognition

    Tianjin Normal University · Shenzhen University · The State Key Laboratory of Blockchain and Data Security, Zhejiang University +2

  9. Towards Intelligible Human-Robot Interaction: An Active Inference Approach to Occluded Pedestrian Scenarios

    Feb 26, 2026Kai Chen, Yuyao Huang, Guang ChenAutonomous Driving PlanningExplainable Motion Planning

    Tongji University Shanghai, China

  10. Resilient by Design -- Active Inference for Distributed Continuum Intelligence

    Nov 10, 2025Praveen Kumar Donta, Alfreds Lapkovskis, Enzo Mingozzi +1Agent ReliabilityActive Inference

    Department of Computer Systems and Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm 164 25, Sweden. · Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy. · Distributed Systems Group, TU Wien, Vienna 1040, Austria and ICREA Barcelona 08002, Spain

  11. Deep Active Inference with Diffusion Policy and Multiple Timescale World Model for Real-World Exploration and Navigation

    Oct 27, 2025Riko Yokozawa, Kentaro Fujii, Yuta Nomura +1Active InferenceRobot Navigation

    School of Integrated Design Engineering, Keio University, Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-8522, Japan

  12. A memory-based active inference model of DishBrain-like adaptive behaviour

    Aug 9, 2025Aswin Paul, Moein Khajehnejad, Forough Habibollahi +2Computational Cognitive ModelingActive Inference

    Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Australia · VERSES, Los Angeles, California, USA · Cortical Labs Pty Ltd, Melbourne 3056, Australia +1