ACT2Infer

Topos Institute, September 18 – 20, 2024

Motivation

At Topos Institute, we are inspired by the way that mathematics, particularly category theory, helps people articulate and clarify great ideas. The process of mathematizing an idea hones it and condenses it, making it portable and memorable.

Active inference is an intriguing framework for how intelligence is produced and maintained through interaction. At the ACT2Infer workshop, we brought experts in applied category theory and active inference together in order to begin the process of articulating and clarifying the underlying principles of active inference via the formalism of category theory.

Participants

Our participants each brought their enthusiasm for actualizing interdisciplinary work in mathematics along with their expertise in active inference and/or applied category theory.

• John Clippinger
• Daphne Demekas
• Daniel Friedman
• Adam Goldstein
• Bleu Knight
• Maxine Lévesque
• Sophie Libkind
• Toby Smithe
• David Spivak
• Alex Zhu

The workshop participants

Organizers

The workshop was organized by Sophie Libkind and David Spivak with funding from Emmett Shear.

Program

This 2.5-day workshop was hosted at the Topos Institute in Berkeley, California.

Our schedule contained a mix of prepared talks, lightning talks, and small group discussions. Our conversations ran the gamut from toy models of active inference to questions of governance and identity.

Artifacts

At the end of the workshop, each participant prepared and presented a 5 minute talk as an artifact of their workshop experience. You can watch several of them here.