Dominic Zhao

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About

Dominic Zhao is a rising theorist in computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence, whose work redefines how we understand agency in biological and artificial systems. His primary research areas include active inference, the free-energy principle, and the computational foundations of goal-directed behavior. Zhao’s most notable contribution is his 2024 paper, *Active Inference as a Model of Agency*, which proposes a mathematically rigorous framework for understanding agency beyond reward maximisation. By grounding behaviour in physically sound assumptions about macroscopic biological agents, he demonstrates that exploration and exploitation are canonically integrated—a breakthrough that challenges dominant reinforcement learning paradigms. Though early in his career, with his flagship paper already garnering 2 citations, Zhao’s work is gaining traction for its potential to unify theories of cognition, decision-making, and adaptive behaviour. His research offers a compelling alternative to traditional AI models, suggesting that agency emerges naturally from systems that minimise surprise. For students and researchers, Zhao’s contributions open new avenues for studying how living systems navigate uncertainty, making him a key voice in the next generation of theoretical neuroscience and AI.