Mahault Albarracin

Université du Québec à Montréal | UQAM · Department of Computer Science

We develop an approach to policy selection in active inference that allows us to efficiently search large policy spaces by mapping each policy to its embedding in a vector space. We sample the expected free energy of representative points in the space, then perform a more thorough policy search around the most promising point in this initial sample...

Phenomenology is the rigorous descriptive study of conscious experience. Recent attempts to formalize Husserlian phenomenology provide us with a mathematical model of perception as a function of prior knowledge and expectation. In this paper, we re-examine elements of Husserlian phenomenology through the lens of active inference. In doing so, we ai...

This white paper lays out a vision of research and development in the field of artificial intelligence for the next decade (and beyond). Its denouement is a cyber-physical ecosystem of natural and synthetic sense-making, in which humans are integral participants$\unicode{x2014}$what we call ''shared intelligence''. This vision is premised on active...

In this article, we aim to conceptualize and formalize the construct of resilience using the tools of active inference, a new physics-based modeling approach apt for the description and analysis of complex adaptive systems. We intend this as a first step toward a computational model of resilient systems. We begin by offering a conceptual analysis o...

Culture exploits the acquisition of meaningful content by crafting regimes of shared attention, determining what is relevant, valuable, and salient. Culture changes the field of relevant social affordances worthy of being acted upon in a context-sensitive manner. When relevant affordances are highly weighted, their attentional capture and their sal...

We develop an approach to policy selection in active inference that allows us to efficiently search large policy spaces by mapping each policy to its embedding in a vector space. We sample the expected free energy of representative points in the space, then perform a more thorough policy search around the most promising point in this initial sample...

Phenomenology is the rigorous descriptive study of conscious experience. Recent attempts to formalize Husserlian phenomenology provide us with a mathematical model of perception as a function of prior knowledge and expectation. In this paper, we re-examine elements of Husserlian phenomenology through the lens of active inference. In doing so, we ai...

In this short editorial, we outline the nature of belief as it is understood in cognitive science (in particular, in computational neuroscience), wherein beliefs are understood as representations of the states of the world. We then introduce active inference: a process theory that formalises how organisms update their beliefs about the sensed world...

In this paper, we aim to conceptualize and formalize the construct of resilience using the tools of active inference, a new physics-based modeling approach apt for the description and analysis of complex adaptive systems. We intend this as a first step towards a computational model of resilient systems. We begin by offering a conceptual analysis of...

This paper aims to show that genders are enacted, by providing an account of how an individual can be said to enact a gender and explaining how, consequently, genders can be fluid. On the enactive-ecological view we defend, individuals first and foremost perceive the world as fields of affordances, that is, structured sets of action possibilities....

The spread of ideas is a fundamental concern of today’s news ecology. Understanding the dynamics of the spread of information and its co-option by interested parties is of critical importance. Research on this topic has shown that individuals tend to cluster in echo-chambers and are driven by confirmation bias. In this paper, we leverage the active...

The spread of ideas is a fundamental concern of today's news ecology. Understanding the dynamics of the spread of information and its co-option by interested parties is of critical importance. Research on this topic has shown that individuals tend to cluster in echo-chambers and are driven by confirmation bias. In this paper, we leverage the active...

This paper proposes a formal reconstruction of the script construct by leveraging the active inference framework, a behavioral modeling framework that casts action, perception, emotions, and attention as processes of (Bayesian or variational) inference. We propose a first principles account of the script construct that integrates its different uses...

13 Gender is often viewed as static binary state for people to embody, based on the sex they were 14 assigned at birth. However, cultural studies increasingly understand gender as neither binary nor 15 static, a view supported both in psychology and sociology. On this view, gender is negotiated 16 between individuals, and highly dependent on contex...

Les sciences cognitives et les sciences sociales n’ont pas atteint un niveau de connexion qui permet un échange paradigmatique suffisant pour développer adéquatement des modèles complexes. Grâce aux théories des affordances, les différentes disciplines peuvent trouver un point d’arrimage clément pour développer des modèles d’interactions sociales....

This paper proposes a formal reconstruction of the script construct by leveraging the activeinference framework, a behavioural modelling framework that casts action, perception,emotions, and attention as processes of (Bayesian or variational) inference. We propose afirst principles account of the script construct that integrates its different uses...

This paper proposes a formal reconstruction of the script construct by leveraging the active inference framework, a behavioural modelling framework that casts action, perception, emotions, and attention as processes of (Bayesian or variational) inference. We propose a first principles account of the script construct that integrates its different us...