Karl Friston Decodes the Real OODA Loop: Active Inference and What Boyd Got Right

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

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