I will introduce generalized empowerment maximization—an information-theoretic framework for modeling intrinsic motivation. I’ll show how to compute empowerment under practical approximations. I will then show how agents driven by this objective can solve standard control problems with no external rewards. Extending this to multi-agent settings, I will present numerical experiments showing how such agents interacting can give rise to qualitatively diverse behaviors—from antagonism to cooperation—reminiscent of living systems. A mathematical understanding of these phenomena is still waiting to be found.

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The appearance at the anatomical level of a canonical laminar microcircuit suggests that each six-layer column of granular cortex may mediate a canonical computation, but it remains unknown what that computation is and which aspects of neuronal activity mediate it. Predictive processing theorists have suggested that gradient-driven Bayesian inference forms this canonical computation, and have put forward circuit models to show how neuronal activity encodes the necessary predictions and errors, such as predictive coding (spike rates) and predictive routing (neuronal oscillations). By combining electrophysiology an optogenetics in a visual oddball task in mice and nonhuman primates, we tested the predictive coding and predictive routing models. Spiking data refuted predictive coding: highly predictable stimuli were never explained away, and highly unpredictable oddballs did not evoke omnipresent prediction errors. Passing to the local field potentials in the spectral domain, ɣ-band local-field potential (LFP) oscillations conveyed feedforward prediction errors in lower sensory areas of cortex; ⍺/β-band oscillations weakened in unpredictable conditions compared to predictable ones; and θ-band oscillations additionally signalled slower, longer-scale temporal prediction errors. In combination with the previous findings, predictive routing explains these experiments where neither ubiquitous predictive coding nor feedforward adaptation can.

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To request the Zoom link send an email to jteeters@berkeley.edu.  Also indicate if you would like to be added to the Redwood Seminar mailing list.

Abstract to be announced.

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To request the Zoom link send an email to jteeters@berkeley.edu.  Also indicate if you would like to be added to the Redwood Seminar mailing list.

Abstract to be announced.

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To request the Zoom link send an email to jteeters@berkeley.edu.  Also indicate if you would like to be added to the Redwood Seminar mailing list.

Abstract to be announced.

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To request the Zoom link send an email to jteeters@berkeley.edu.  Also indicate if you would like to be added to the Redwood Seminar mailing list.

Abstract to be announced.

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To request the Zoom link send an email to jteeters@berkeley.edu.  Also indicate if you would like to be added to the Redwood Seminar mailing list.