I'm not sure why you'd describe "sampling from a probability distribution over possible tokens" as "minimize surprise in predictions" other than to make it sound similar to the free energy thing.

The free energy thing as I understand it has internal state, makes predictions, evaluates against new input and adjusts it internal state to continuously learn to predict new input better. This might if you squint look similar to training a neural network, although the mechanisms are different, but it's very distinct from the inference step

"Minimize surprise" and "maximize accurate predictions" are the same thing mathematically. Minimize free energy = minimize prediction error.

LLMs do everything modelled in the free energy principle, they just don't do continuous learning. (They don't do perceptual inference after RL)

Your tone ("free energy thing" and "if you squint") comes off as dismissive and not intellectually honest. Here I thought you were actually curious, but I guess not?