Premium Only Content

ActInf ModelStream 014.1: Ran Wei, Value of Information and Reward Specification in Active Inference
"Value of Information and Reward Specification in Active Inference and POMDPs"
Ran Wei
[Submitted on 13 Aug 2024]
https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2408.06542
Expected free energy (EFE) is a central quantity in active inference which has recently gained popularity due to its intuitive decomposition of the expected value of control into a pragmatic and an epistemic component. While numerous conjectures have been made to justify EFE as a decision making objective function, the most widely accepted is still its intuitiveness and resemblance to variational free energy in approximate Bayesian inference. In this work, we take a bottom up approach and ask: taking EFE as given, what's the resulting agent's optimality gap compared with a reward-driven reinforcement learning (RL) agent, which is well understood? By casting EFE under a particular class of belief MDP and using analysis tools from RL theory, we show that EFE approximates the Bayes optimal RL policy via information value. We discuss the implications for objective specification of active inference agents.
----
Active Inference Institute information:
Website: https://activeinference.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/InferenceActive
Discord: https://discord.gg/8VNKNp4jtx
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ActiveInference/
Active Inference Livestreams: https://coda.io/@active-inference-institute/livestreams
-
LIVE
The Bubba Army
22 hours agoAnother LopSided Jake Paul Fight? - Bubba the Love Sponge® Show | 8/21/25
7,786 watching -
1:02:42
Dialogue works
1 day ago $3.19 earnedJohn Helmer: Trump Ditches Ceasefire? Despite EU & Zelensky Pressure
46.9K18 -
10:48
Nikko Ortiz
19 hours agoDont Watch These TikToks
84K13 -
10:17
MattMorseTV
18 hours ago $15.30 earnedTrump's DOJ just DROPPED a NUKE.
87.2K91 -
2:09:32
Side Scrollers Podcast
21 hours agoStreamer DIES Live On Air + Your Food is Poison + Xbox Announces $900 Handheld | Side Scrollers Live
41.1K13 -
15:32
GritsGG
17 hours agoFull Auto ABR Sniper Support! Most Winning Quad Win Streaking!
24.7K3 -
7:42
The Pascal Show
16 hours ago $1.98 earnedBREAKING! Police Provide UPDATE In Emmanuel Haro's Case! Is Jake's Lawyer Lying To Us?!
32.7K2 -
2:29:46
FreshandFit
10 hours agoAfter Hours w/ Girls
135K90 -
5:28
Zach Humphries
16 hours ago $2.59 earnedNEAR PROTCOL AND STELLAR TEAM UP!
36.4K4 -
1:09:57
Brandon Gentile
1 day ago10,000 Hour BITCOIN Expert Reveals Why $13.5M Is Just The Start
36.3K7