
Karl Friston Decodes the Real OODA Loop: Active Inference and What Boyd Got Right
From No Way Out by Mark McGrath and Brian "Ponch" Rivera
April 28, 2026 · 2h 16m · Episode 164
About this episode
Karl Friston discusses the OODA Loop and its implications for understanding decision-making under uncertainty.
Send us Fan Mail Karl Friston, FRS, is the architect of the Free Energy Principle and Active Inference, the formal mathematics that describes how living systems perceive, predict, and engage with their environments under uncertainty. In this conversation, Brian "Ponch" Rivera and Mark McGrath walk Friston through John Boyd’s actual OODA sketch, not the linearized four-box version, and the result is the closest thing yet to a formal validation of what Boyd was reaching for in 1995. The convers...
People in this episode
Hosts: Brian "Ponch" Rivera, Mark McGrath
Guest: Karl Friston
Topics covered
- Active Inference
- OODA Loop
- Free Energy Principle
- decision making
- uncertainty
- living systems
Keywords
- OODA Loop
- Active Inference
- Free Energy Principle
- John Boyd
- decision making
- uncertainty
- living systems
More episodes of No Way Out
- The Fractals of Finance: Richard Brennan on Complex Adaptive Markets and the Real OODA Loop · May 27, 2026 · 1h 32m
- Shawn Myszka on the Constraints-Led Approach, the NFL Combine, and Coaching the Player Not the Method · May 13, 2026 · 60 min
- The A-Frame: A Navy SEAL's Extension of Boyd's OODA Loop with Adam "Guz" Karaoguz · May 11, 2026 · 1h 23m
- The #2 NFL Draft Pick Who Almost Didn't Make It: Robert Gallery on TBI, Ibogaine, and Flow · April 20, 2026 · 1h 4m
- Guerrilla Intelligence: Bob Gourley on the Real OODA Loop, AI, and Winning the Information War · April 14, 2026 · 1h 14m
- Outside Information: Sputnik to Artemis II, NDEs to UAPs, Disclosure & Project Hail Mary | Dr. Helm · April 8, 2026 · 1h 13m
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the No Way Out podcast page.