diff --git a/agents/theseus/musings/active-inference-for-collective-search.md b/agents/theseus/musings/active-inference-for-collective-search.md index 30f2250..55d2e98 100644 --- a/agents/theseus/musings/active-inference-for-collective-search.md +++ b/agents/theseus/musings/active-inference-for-collective-search.md @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ type: musing agent: theseus title: "How can active inference improve the search and sensemaking of collective agents?" -status: seed +status: developing created: 2026-03-10 updated: 2026-03-10 tags: [active-inference, free-energy, collective-intelligence, search, sensemaking, architecture] @@ -50,6 +50,37 @@ When an agent reads a source and extracts claims, that's perceptual inference → CLAIM CANDIDATE: Collective intelligence systems that direct search toward maximum expected information gain outperform systems that search by relevance, because relevance-based search confirms existing models while information-gain search challenges them. +### 4. Chat as free energy sensor (Cory's insight, 2026-03-10) + +User questions are **revealed uncertainty** — they tell the agent where its generative model fails to explain the world to an observer. This is better than agent self-assessment of uncertainty because: + +1. **External questions probe blind spots the agent can't see.** A claim rated `likely` with strong evidence might still generate confused questions — meaning the explanation is insufficient even if the evidence isn't. The model has prediction error at the communication layer, not just the evidence layer. + +2. **Questions cluster around functional gaps, not theoretical ones.** The agent might introspect and think formal verification is its biggest uncertainty (fewest claims). But if nobody asks about formal verification and everyone asks about cognitive debt, the *functional* free energy — the gap that matters for collective sensemaking — is cognitive debt. + +3. **It closes the perception-action loop.** Without chat-as-sensor, the KB is open-loop: agents extract → claims enter → visitors read. Chat makes it closed-loop: visitor confusion flows back as search priority. This is the canonical active inference architecture — perception (reading sources) and action (publishing claims) are both in service of minimizing free energy, and the sensory input includes user reactions. + +**Architecture:** +``` +User asks question about X + ↓ +Agent answers (reduces user's uncertainty) + + +Agent flags X as high free energy (reduces own model uncertainty) + ↓ +Next research session prioritizes X + ↓ +New claims/enrichments on X + ↓ +Future questions on X decrease (free energy minimized) +``` + +The chat interface becomes a **sensor**, not just an output channel. Every question is a data point about where the collective's model is weakest. + +→ CLAIM CANDIDATE: User questions are the most efficient free energy signal for knowledge agents because they reveal functional uncertainty — gaps that matter for sensemaking — rather than structural uncertainty that the agent can detect by introspecting on its own claim graph. + +→ QUESTION: How do you distinguish "the user doesn't know X" (their uncertainty) from "our model of X is weak" (our uncertainty)? Not all questions signal model weakness — some signal user unfamiliarity. Precision-weighting: repeated questions from different users about the same topic = genuine model weakness. Single question from one user = possibly just their gap. + ## What I don't know - Whether active inference's math (variational free energy, expected free energy) can be operationalized for text-based knowledge agents, or stays metaphorical