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| 1 | +# active inference x cft: summary and integration plan |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +## executive summary |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +- active inference gives a single principle for agents to perceive, learn, and act by minimising variational free energy. |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +- cft models collective attention as token-weighted random walks converging to a stationary distribution (collective focus). |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +- fusing them yields a self-configuring network where each neuron updates beliefs and adjusts links to lower expected free energy, improving stability, curiosity, and robustness. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +- precision (confidence) becomes an on-chain economic signal that prices prediction errors and filters noise. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +## key mappings between active inference and cft |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +- hidden states ↔ latent attributes of particles and edges in the cybergraph |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +- observations ↔ measured traffic of random walks, link arrivals, weight changes |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +- generative model ↔ each neuron's local probabilistic model of link dynamics and token flows |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +- prediction error ↔ divergence between expected focus distribution and realised traffic |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +- precision (confidence) ↔ adaptive token staking and edge weights that amplify trusted signals |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +- free energy ↔ upper bound on global uncertainty over graph states; minimised at focus convergence |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +## minimal algorithmic spec |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +- belief representation: variational posterior q_θ(z) over latent graph states z per neuron; parameters θ stored locally. |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +- free energy: F = Eq_θ[−log p(s, z)] + H[q_θ], with s the local observations (traffic, link events). goal is to reduce F. |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +- expected free energy for planning: G(π) = risk + ambiguity ≈ Eq[−log p(preferred s | z)] + Eq[H[p(s | z)]], guiding policy π over link edits and sampling actions. |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | +- precision control: learn/logit-scale precisions λ for different error channels; use soft attention to weight updates. |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +- hierarchical markov blankets: discover clusters (modules) with dense internal edges; perform message passing within and between blankets for scalability. |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +### reference update loop (pseudocode) |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +``` |
| 42 | +for epoch in epochs: |
| 43 | + for neuron i in graph: |
| 44 | + s_i ← observe(local traffic, link arrivals, token flows) |
| 45 | + \hat{s}_i ← predict via generative model |
| 46 | + ε_i ← s_i − \hat{s}_i # prediction error |
| 47 | + θ_i ← θ_i − η_θ * ∇_θ F(s_i; θ_i, λ_i) # perception / learning |
| 48 | + λ_i ← λ_i − η_λ * ∇_λ F # precision tuning |
| 49 | + a_i ← argmin_π G_i(π; θ_i, λ_i) # choose action policy |
| 50 | + execute(a_i) # edit edges, stake, sample |
| 51 | +``` |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +## integration roadmap |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +- modelling |
| 56 | + - define a neurally inspired generative model p(s, z) for link dynamics conditioned on local focus, trending content cues, and governance events. |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | + - specify preference distributions over observations (e.g., high-quality citations, low spam entropy) to ground goal-directed behaviour. |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +- protocol layer |
| 61 | + - add a lightweight variational message-passing step to the existing compute kernel so neurons exchange sufficient statistics before committing writes. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | + - implement precision-weighted staking where tokens back the reliability of subgraphs and price prediction-error channels. |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +- scalability |
| 66 | + - form markov-blanket modules via community detection; schedule intra-module updates at high frequency and inter-module updates at lower frequency. |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | + - use sparse, low-rank approximations for θ and amortised inference for q_θ(z) to keep costs bounded. |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | +- evaluation |
| 71 | + - run ablations on the test-net comparing baseline cft vs cft + active inference on convergence speed, adversarial resilience, retrieval accuracy, and compute cost. |
| 72 | + |
| 73 | + - track free-energy and precision maps as primary diagnostics. |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | +## expected benefits and risks |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | +- benefits |
| 78 | + - faster, more stable convergence under uncertainty and drift |
| 79 | + |
| 80 | + - intrinsic curiosity drives exploration without central control |
| 81 | + |
| 82 | + - robustness: anomalous regions get down-weighted via precision control |
| 83 | + |
| 84 | + - interpretability: free-energy heatmaps show why attention moves |
| 85 | + |
| 86 | +- risks / mitigations |
| 87 | + - overfitting preferences: adopt plural preference priors and rotate committees |
| 88 | + |
| 89 | + - precision gaming: require skin-in-the-game with slashing on bad forecasts; diversify error channels |
| 90 | + |
| 91 | + - compute overhead: amortise inference, cache sufficient statistics, schedule updates asynchronously |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | +## open research questions |
| 94 | + |
| 95 | +- what precision-staking regime best aligns epistemic efficiency with token economics under real traffic? |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | +- where are phase transitions in emergent intelligence when adding hierarchical markov blankets to cft? |
| 98 | + |
| 99 | +- how to calibrate preference distributions without central authority while avoiding sybil manipulation? |
| 100 | + |
| 101 | +- which approximate-inference methods (e.g., natural gradients, lo-fi variational families) give the best performance-compute tradeoff on very large graphs? |
| 102 | + |
| 103 | +## immediate next actions |
| 104 | + |
| 105 | +- formalise a concrete free-energy objective for the current cyberrank kernel and derive local gradients. |
| 106 | + |
| 107 | +- prototype the message-passing layer on a small subgraph and measure free-energy descent and retrieval quality. |
| 108 | + |
| 109 | +- design and test precision-weighted staking rules with simulated adversaries before on-chain trials. |
| 110 | + |
| 111 | +- prepare ablation metrics, dashboards, and free-energy map visualisations for the next test-net cycle. |
| 112 | + |
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