- Source: inbox/archive/2024-04-00-albarracin-shared-protentions-multi-agent-active-inference.md - Domain: collective-intelligence - Extracted by: headless extraction cron (worker 4) Pentagon-Agent: Leo <HEADLESS>
39 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
39 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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type: claim
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domain: collective-intelligence
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description: "Group intentionality (we-intentions) formalizes as shared components of agents' generative models rather than aggregated individual intentions"
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confidence: experimental
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source: "Albarracin et al., 'Shared Protentions in Multi-Agent Active Inference', Entropy 2024"
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created: 2026-03-11
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secondary_domains: [ai-alignment]
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---
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# Group intentionality — the "we intend to X" that exceeds the sum of individual intentions — formalizes as shared anticipatory structures within agents' generative models
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Albarracin et al. (2024) provide a formal account of group intentionality using active inference and category theory. They argue that "we-intentions" (collective goals that are not reducible to individual intentions) emerge when agents share components of their generative models, particularly the temporal/anticipatory aspects.
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This resolves a longstanding puzzle in social ontology: how can a group have intentions that are not just the sum of individual intentions? The answer: group intentions are **structural properties of shared generative models**, not aggregated individual mental states.
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## Evidence
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The paper:
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- Formalizes Husserlian phenomenology of collective intentionality using active inference framework
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- Uses category theory to model the mathematical structure of shared goals
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- Demonstrates that shared protentions (anticipatory structures) in generative models produce group-level intentionality
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Key insight: When agents share anticipations about future states, they form a collective intentional structure that is **ontologically distinct** from individual intentions. The group intention exists in the shared model components, not in any individual agent's mind.
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## Implications
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For multi-agent systems:
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- Group goals should be encoded as **shared anticipatory structures** (what future states do all agents predict?), not as aggregated individual goals
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- Collective action emerges from shared temporal predictions, not from negotiated individual commitments
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- Measuring group intentionality = measuring overlap in agents' generative model components, particularly temporal predictions
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---
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Relevant Notes:
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- [[collective intelligence is a measurable property of group interaction structure not aggregated individual ability]]
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Topics:
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- [[collective-intelligence/_map]]
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