“Downright incorrect”—no, because Active Inference model would be simply a mathematical generalisation of (simple) feedback control model in a thermostat. The implication “thermostat is a feedback control system” → “thermostat is an Active Inference agent” has the same “truth property” (sorry, I don’t know the correct term for this in logic) as the implication “A is a group” → “A is a semigroup”. Just a strict mathematical model generalisation.
“and to say that it’s ‘predicting’ that the room temperature will stay constant.”—no, it doesn’t predict predict specifically that “temperature will stay constant”. It predicts (or, “has preference for”) a distribution of temperature states of the room. And tries to act so as the actual distribution of these room temperatures matches this predicted distribution.
Unhelpful—yes.
“Downright incorrect”—no, because Active Inference model would be simply a mathematical generalisation of (simple) feedback control model in a thermostat. The implication “thermostat is a feedback control system” → “thermostat is an Active Inference agent” has the same “truth property” (sorry, I don’t know the correct term for this in logic) as the implication “A is a group” → “A is a semigroup”. Just a strict mathematical model generalisation.
“and to say that it’s ‘predicting’ that the room temperature will stay constant.”—no, it doesn’t predict predict specifically that “temperature will stay constant”. It predicts (or, “has preference for”) a distribution of temperature states of the room. And tries to act so as the actual distribution of these room temperatures matches this predicted distribution.