What's the difference between a large language model and the human brain? And what's wrong with our theories of agency? In this episode, I chat about these questions with Jan Kulveit, who leads the Alignment of Complex Systems research group. Patreon: patreon.com/axrpodcast Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/axrpodcast The transcript: axrp.net/episode/2024/05/30/episode-32-understanding-agency-jan-kulveit.html Topics we discuss, and timestamps: 0:00:47 - What is active inference? 0:15:14 - Preferences in active inference 0:31:33 - Action vs perception in active inference 0:46:07 - Feedback loops 1:01:32 - Active inference vs LLMs 1:12:04 - Hierarchical agency 1:58:28 - The Alignment of Complex Systems group   Website of the Alignment of Complex Systems group (ACS): acsresearch.org ACS on X/Twitter: x.com/acsresearchorg Jan on LessWrong: lesswrong.com/users/jan-kulveit Predictive Minds: Large Language Models as Atypical Active Inference Agents: arxiv.org/abs/2311.10215   Other works we discuss: Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain, and Behavior: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58275959 Book Review: Surfing Uncertainty: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ The self-unalignment problem: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9GyniEBaN3YYTqZXn/the-self-unalignment-problem Mitigating generative agent social dilemmas (aka language models writing contracts for Minecraft): https://social-dilemmas.github.io/   Episode art by Hamish Doodles: hamishdoodles.com