‘Godmother of AI’ and tech entrepreneurs draw investors by pivoting from chatbots to ‘world models’ saying AI has to read the room, not just books

AI researchers and entrepreneurs are shifting focus from chatbots to 'world models' to enable AI systems to understand and interact with physical environments. Louis Castricato founded Overworld to develop AI that navigates real-world contexts, while Fei-Fei Li and Yann LeCun advocate for world models that incorporate spatial and temporal understanding. Critics argue current language models lack the capability to handle physical tasks like object manipulation.