# When Agency Stalls: The Human Readiness Gap Presenter: Sheena Yap Chan Contribution: Pre-recorded Video presentation Public ID: talk-086ee97e7134b165 ## Submitted abstract Active inference offers a powerful way to understand perception, action, uncertainty, and adaptive behavior. Yet in organizational and social systems, adaptation does not happen through information alone. People must feel ready to update beliefs, reduce uncertainty, act with agency, communicate signals, and participate in environments where change is constant and often ambiguous. This session introduces Human Readiness and the VISIBLE™ Framework — Voice, Identity, Spotlight, Inner Work, Belief, Leverage, and Elevation — as an applied lens for examining how confidence, visibility, identity, trust, and social context shape adaptive action. Rather than presenting confidence as a personality trait, the session frames it as a practical condition that influences participation, belief updating, decision-making, and collective learning. Participants will leave with a framework for identifying human readiness gaps in teams, organizations, learning environments, and communities. Because adaptive systems require more than intelligence. They require humans ready to perceive, act, and learn. By the end of this session, participants will be able to: 1. Identify three Human Readiness gaps that may limit adaptive action, including low agency, uncertainty avoidance, reduced voice, identity threat, low trust, or lack of participation. 2. Apply the VISIBLE™ Framework to examine how voice, identity, belief, visibility, confidence, and social context influence human action under uncertainty. 3. Design one practical Human Readiness strategy that supports stronger agency, clearer communication, more adaptive learning, and more participatory systems. Source: [submitted source]() Abstract SHA256: ad3c046f0799e57daaa7696c441a9ae97d637ec149febd9e2aeab58cd4e3247d ## Organizer review checklist - [ ] Confirm the submitted title, presenter, and abstract with the presenter. - [ ] Confirm contribution format and scheduling needs. - [ ] Confirm public permissions for any additional material before publication. - [ ] Prepare discussion questions grounded in the submitted abstract. ## Public learning resources These approved event resources are starting points; topic relevance and author identity have not been inferred. - Active Inference Ontology: https://github.com/ActiveInferenceInstitute/Active_Inference_Ontology - Cognitive Agent Modeling: https://github.com/ActiveInferenceInstitute/ActiveInferenceImplementations - GEO-INFER: https://github.com/ActiveInferenceInstitute/GEO_INFER - Generalized Notation Notation: https://github.com/ActiveInferenceInstitute/Generalized_Notation_Notation - pymdp: https://github.com/infer-actively/pymdp - Reproducible publication template: https://github.com/docxology/template OpenAlex discovery-only search (not a verified identity or literature match): https://openalex.org/works?search=When%20Agency%20Stalls%3A%20The%20Human%20Readiness%20Gap