World models -- internal simulators that learn the structure and dynamics of an environment -- have become one of the most actively debated concepts in AI. From model-based reinforcement learning and video generation to embodied robotics and ultimately, physical AI, researchers across AI subfields are building systems that they call "world models", yet there is no consensus on what a world model fundamentally is, what it should predict, or how it should be built.
arXiv:2606. 12783v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: World modeling is emerging as a central principle for building intelligent systems capable of prediction, reasoning, and decision making.
By Il-Seok Oh
arXiv:2607. 00836v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: World models are increasingly used in embodied intelligence and generative simulation, yet their scope remains ambiguous across communities.
By Xiaoxiong Zhang, Xiong Zeng, Wei Zhang
arXiv:2604. 22748v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: As AI systems move from generating text to accomplishing goals through sustained interaction, the ability to model environment dynamics becomes a central bottleneck.
By Meng Chu, Xuan Billy Zhang, Kevin Qinghong Lin, Lingdong Kong, Jize Zhang, Teng Tu, Weijian Ma, Ziqi Huang, Senqiao Yang, Wei Huang, Yeying Jin, Zhefan Rao, Jinhui Ye, Xinyu Lin, Xichen Zhang, Qisheng Hu, Shuai Yang, Leyang Shen, Wei Chow, Yifei Dong, Fengyi Wu, Quanyu Long, Bin Xia, Shaozuo Yu, Mingkang Zhu, Wenhu Zhang, Jiehui Huang, Haokun Gui, Runyi Li, Shiyi Du, Xu Huang, Dong Huang, Rui Liu, Chenyu Tang, Xuhang Chen, Chengzu Li, Haoxuan Che, Long Chen, Qifeng Chen, Wenxuan Zhang, Wenya Wang, Xiaojuan Qi, Yang Deng, Yanwei Li, Mike Zheng Shou, Zhi-Qi Cheng, See-Kiong Ng, Ziwei Liu, Philip Torr, Jiaya Jia
arXiv:2605. 00412v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: World models have recently re-emerged as a central paradigm for embodied intelligence, robotics, autonomous driving, and model-based reinforcement learning.
By Sen Cui, Jingheng Ma
arXiv:2507. 05169v5 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: World Model, the algorithmic simulator of the real-world environment which biological agents experience and act upon, has been an emerging topic in recent years due to the rising need to develop virtual agents with artificial (general) intelligence.
By Eric Xing, Mingkai Deng, Jinyu Hou
arXiv:2507. 05169v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: World Model, the algorithmic simulator of the real-world environment which biological agents experience and act upon, has been an emerging topic in recent years due to the rising need to develop virtual agents with artificial (general) intelligence.
By Eric Xing, Mingkai Deng, Jinyu Hou
arXiv:2606. 00133v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: World models, internal simulators that learn the structure and dynamics of an environment, have emerged as a central paradigm in the pursuit of artificial general intelligence, enabling agents to predict, plan, and reason within learned representations.
By Arif Hassan Zidan, Yi Pan, Hanqi Jiang, Ruiyu Yan, Wei Ruan, Zihao Wu, Lifeng Chen, Weihang You, Xinliang Li, Bowen Chen, Huawen Hu, Peilong Wang, Sizhuang Liu, Jing Zhang, Siyuan Li, Zhengliang Liu, Yu Bao, Lin Zhao, Lichao Sun, Dajiang Zhu, Xiang Li, Jinglei Lv, Quanzheng Li, Wei Liu, Tianming Liu, Wei Zhang
We introduce PhiZero, a physical world model built around physical language, a compact discrete representation of world-state transitions. Existing physical world models typically predict future videos directly in pixel space, leaving the underlying world dynamics implicit within high-dimensional visual predictors.
arXiv:2602. 13977v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning (RL) promises to unlock capabilities beyond imitation learning for Vision--Language--Action (VLA) models, but its requirement for massive real-world interaction prevents direct deployment on physical robots.
By Zhennan Jiang, Shangqing Zhou, Yutong Jiang, Zefang Huang, Mingjie Wei, Yuhui Chen, Tianxing Zhou, Zhen Guo, Hao Lin, Quanlu Zhang, Yu Wang, Haoran Li, Chao Yu, Dongbin Zhao
arXiv:2608. 02713v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Continually improving agents require dynamic interaction feedback beyond static supervision, yet direct real-environment interaction is costly, slow, unsafe, and hard to parallelize.
By Yu Yang, Xuemeng Yang, Licheng Wen, Lingdong Kong, Xiaobin Hu, Dongyue Lu, Wei Chow, Xiyan Huang, Yuxiang Feng, Yue Liao, Jianbiao Mei, Daocheng Fu, Rong Wu, Pinlong Cai, Ran Yi, Ying Tai, Jiangning Zhang, Botian Shi, Yong Liu, Shuicheng Yan
Continually improving agents require dynamic interaction feedback beyond static supervision, yet direct real-environment interaction is costly, slow, unsafe, and hard to parallelize. World modeling offers a natural intermediate proxy that allows agents to query lower-cost, more controllable feedback before committing to real actions.