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What if we've been thinking about AI all wrong? What if endless scaling isn't the answer, but instead we need systems that understand context, embody knowledge, and grasp causal relationships like living organisms do?

In this mind-expanding conversation with Mahault Albarracin, PhD, VERSES AI Director of Research Strategy – recorded on the 49th anniversary of John Boyd's seminal paper "Destruction and Creation" – we journey through the fascinating landscape where neuroscience meets artificial intelligence. Mahault shares how her background in social sciences led her to active inference, a framework that models intelligence after natural cognitive systems rather than linear engineering approaches, echoing Boyd's emphasis on breaking down outdated mental models to create adaptive new ones.

The parallels between Karl Friston's active inference and Boyd's OODA loop emerge vividly, as both frameworks highlight prediction, orientation in complex environments, and harmonizing changing tactical actions with evolving strategic intentions. We explore why current AI systems struggle with tasks humans find intuitive – they lack embodiment within spatial-temporal reality and fail to grasp how context shifts meaning, much like the limitations Boyd critiqued in rigid, backwards-planning strategies.

Perhaps most provocatively, we challenge the dominant AI doom narratives, tracing them to biases rooted in defense funding, colonial hierarchies, and adversarial worldviews. Could our fears of malevolent artificial intelligence simply reflect our own projections? What if, instead of building systems expecting friction, we created AI capable of empathy, resonance, and connection? As Mahault suggests, "The condition for AI alignment is to give it the ability to love us, to have empathy, to see us as kin rather than just objectives."

The conversation ranges from the technical details of the spatial web (creating interoperable standards for meaningful, privacy-respecting data connectivity) to philosophical questions about consciousness, harmony in multi-agent systems, and

NWO Intro with Boyd

March 25, 2025

Flow Learning Lab

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Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation

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The technological paradigm we've grown accustomed to—with centralized AI models hallucinating answers and requiring massive energy consumption—is about to undergo a profound transformation. This fascinating conversation explores how active inference AI, inspired by the principles of biological intelligence, offers a fundamentally different approach that could reshape our technological landscape.

Dr. David Bray articulates the critical distinction between current AI systems that merely pattern-match based on past data versus the emerging active inference models that continuously predict, observe, and update their (Orientation) understanding of the world. These systems don't just regurgitate information; they develop mental models that allow them to navigate novelty and uncertainty just as our brains do. Meanwhile, Denise Holt explains how the newly ratified spatial web protocol creates the infrastructure for these distributed intelligence systems to operate across networks with shared context and meaning.

What makes this shift particularly compelling is its potential to restore human agency in technological systems. Rather than the surveillance capitalism model that has dominated recent decades, active inference AI within the spatial web framework enables pre-compute permissions and constraints, allowing individuals to specify what they want to happen (or not happen) with their digital identity. This represents a fundamental realignment of power dynamics in our technological future.

The implications extend beyond individual experience to organizational performance, national security, and global commerce. From detecting weak signals that might indicate emerging threats to managing complex adaptive systems like supply chains, this approach enables decentralized intelligence that can process information closer to where it's needed—at the edge.

Ready to explore this new frontier of AI? Connect with Denise Holt at Learning Lab Central to join a community focused on active inference and the s

NWO Intro with Boyd

March 25, 2025

Flow Learning Lab

Find us on X. @NoWayOutcast
Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation

Want to develop your organization’s capacity for free and independent action (Organic Success)? Learn more and follow us at:
https://www.aglx.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@AGLXConsulting
https://www.linkedin.com/company/aglx-consulting-llc/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandrivera
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjmcgrath1
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemccrone

Stay in the Loop. Don't have time to listen to the podcast? Want to make some snowmobiles? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive deeper insights on current and past episodes.
Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch:

The No Bell Podcast Episode 24
...

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What happens when our increasingly interconnected systems face unexpected challenges? Dr. David Woods, pioneer of resilience engineering, explores how organizations can build the adaptive capacity needed to survive in an age of growing complexity.

Drawing from decades studying high-risk industries, Woods frames our current technological moment with historical perspective. The "second AI gold rush" unfolds with familiar patterns – promising seamless automation while overlooking the inevitable new complexities and vulnerabilities that emerge. Through compelling examples from Boeing's 737 MAX disasters to financial system collapses, he demonstrates how brittle systems eventually break when organizations prioritize short-term productivity over long-term resilience.

Woods introduces core principles of adaptive organizations – graceful extensibility, the capacity to reconfigure and reprioritize under pressure, and the critical ability to anticipate approaching saturation points before collapse occurs. He challenges the linear thinking that dominates most organizations, explaining why reframing – updating our mental models to match changing reality – proves so difficult yet essential for survival.

Whether you're navigating organizational challenges, interested in the future of human-AI collaboration, or seeking to understand resilience in an uncertain world, this episode provides essential frameworks for thinking differently about complexity, surprise, and adaptation when failure isn't an option.

David Woods on LinkedIn

Dept. of Integrated Systems Engineering, David Woods, PhD

NWO Intro with Boyd

March 25, 2025

Flow Learning Lab

Find us on X. @NoWayOutcast
Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation

Want to develop your organization’s capacity for free and independent action (Organic Success)? Learn more and follow us at:
https://www.aglx.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@AGLXConsulting
https://www.linkedin.com/company/aglx-consulting-llc/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandrivera
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markjmcgrath1
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemccrone

Stay in the Loop. Don't have time to listen to the podcast? Want to make some snowmobiles? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive deeper insights on current and past episodes.
Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch:

The No Bell Podcast Episode 24
...