Continual Learning: World Models in Natural & Artificial Intelligence with Adam Safron

What does it actually mean for a machine to “understand” the world? Are today’s auto-regressive LLMs truly reasoning, or is statistical text prediction fundamentally distinct from genuine deliberative agency and causal inference? And how do we move away from brittle, post-hoc safety patches toward intrinsic, system-level alignment?This week begins Continual Learning, a new mini-series co-hosted with my friend and colleague, cognitive scientist Dr. Adam Safron of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and the Active Inference Institute. For the last year, we’ve been working together with the support of Survival and Flourishing Fund to advance scientific understanding and silo-crossing conversation around AI capabilities, alignment, and regulation—centered on a special issue of Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A on World models in natural and artificial intelligence co-edited by Adam and Michael Levin. The next several episodes are a meaningful detour into this work.Over the coming season, we’ll dive deep into cognitive neuroscience, complex systems science, the study of narratives, and Buddhist epistemology to explore what true world modeling entails. This episodes launches that investigation by identifying major major themes from the special issue and connecting dots between its papers. (Strap in, because we move a million miles an hour.) Some of the questions we raise include:* How do we rigorously define what a world model is—and isn’t?* Do machines need goals, intrinsic motivation, and deliberation to truly think?* What is the relationship between world-modeling and agency?* Where can we look for evidence of emergent structure in scaling LLMs, and what does it mean if we don’t find it?* How can we structure scientific collaboration to ask better questions about the future of human-machine co-evolution…and what might it take for machines to actively participate in that inquiry?Explore the entire open-access special issue here.And whether you read the papers or not, be sure to check out this illuminating interactive discourse map by Van Bettauer of Ideoscopic to help you navigate where these researchers agree, disagree, and point toward future study.(Long-time fans will also want to check out his re-imagined interface for AskFutureFossils.com, complete with simulated debates between my guests!)Subscribe for amazing conversations with Nadav Amir, John Krakauer, Fritz Breithaupt, Michael Levin, and many more!✨ Hire me to help you and your team identify your blind spots and make better sense✨ Support my research, writing, and community work with a tax-deductible donation✨ Become a founding member to access my online courses, including Jurassic Worlding and How To Live In The Future✨ Browse and buy the books we mention on the show at Bookshop.org✨ Stream and download my tunes at artist-owned music co-op Subvert.fm✨ Continual Learning theme song: “Substrate Dynamics” by Neon Chameleon✨ Learn more about how we’re applying these ideas at Atlas Research Group, my team building sovereign infrastructure for social coherence and collective intelligenceChapters00:00 Teaser01:58 Intro06:04 We’re finally doing this06:35 Adam’s context on this series11:38 Michael’s context on this series16:09 Bringing together this special issue20:34 The cognitive equivalent of an airplane wing?26:56 Connecting goals and intrinsic motivation31:29 Requisite diversity in scientific and machine intelligences38:41 Is there an “I” in AI, and does it need constraints?41:48 Does consciousness emerge, and how is it not capability?47:45 Misattributing mind vs. missing mind55:28 Why is it so hard to make an AI scientist?1:02:43 The promise of a new economy1:08:52 Embodiment and alternative architectures1:13:45 Where do we go from here?1:17:34 OutroOther MentionsActive Inference Symposium 2025 roundtable discussion with Karl J Friston, Michael Garfield, Adam Safron, Alexander Ororbia, Hongju Pae:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTivWre-8KkRay Kurzweil — The Singularity is NearErik Hoel — The Overfitted Brain: Dreams Evolved to Assist GeneralizationW. Brian Arthur — The Nature of TechnologyNicholas Carr — The Glass CageKevin Kelly — The Handoff to BotsSteven Johnson — Revenge of The HumanitiesHumans On The Loop is committed to better collective sensemaking and the production of public goods. Thank you for your support! Learn more here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe