Overview
In this paper, we integrate conflict studies with Active Inference, a developing framework which provides an integrative and systems-level perspective on cognition and behavior. This formalization, the Active Inference Conflict (AIC) model, situates conflict in terms of a multiscale process of communication, trust, and relationship management enacted by interacting entities. The AIC model helps capture and extend the insights of previous models applied to aspects of conflict and war, such as OODA loops (observe-orient-decide-act), the generations of warfare model, and the Rumsfeld Matrix. The AIC model aids in the analysis of pertinent aspects of modern conflict, such as cyber, psychological, biological, informational, financial, and ideological conflict, that are not amenable to coherent or consistent analysis using traditional models of human conflict. AIC is demonstrated to be of use in both monitoring and studying conflict, as well as in designing systems intended to facilitate controlled or managed conflict in scenarios characterized by business, operations, legal, technical, and social (BOLTS) components. Insights and implications from qualitative use are used as a foundation for offering recommendations for future research and social systems design.
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Methods and contributions
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Findings and contributions
- The survey indicated existing warfare models are underdeveloped for non-kinetic, information-based conflict and are rarely interoperable.
- The authors contend war and politics are both continuations of conflict by other means, revising Clausewitz's dictum.
- They argue prioritizing the neglected unknown-knowns quadrant offers a pathway to multi-scale risk mitigation in online interactions.
- They suggest trust-management frameworks could channel information conflicts into generative 'risk commons' structures rather than discord.
- They recommend treating de-risking as an ongoing process and mining disagreement for value via shared protocols in information-exchange design.
Methods
- Survey of qualitative and quantitative models of military conflict — Reviews narrative models (heuristics, military revolutions, generations of warfare), quantitative models (Lanchester, fault trees, DoDAF) and decision models (OODA, Rumsfeld Matrix).
- Active Inference Conflict (AIC) model formulated from ActInf — Applies Active Inference, with expected free energy balancing epistemic and pragmatic value, to frame conflict as multiscale communication, trust and relationship management.
- Qualitative mapping of AIC onto OODA, generations of warfare, BOLTS — Uses AIC qualitatively to relate entity action loops to OODA, move beyond generations of warfare, and model business, operations, legal, technical and social conflict.
- Rumsfeld Matrix analysis of the 'unknown-knowns' quadrant — Uses Rumsfeld's knowledge quadrants as a lens on inter-organizational conflict to examine the neglected unknown-knowns quadrant and the role of trust.
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