World model companies are keeping a lot of secrets

世界模型公司正守口如瓶

This week, I moderated a panel on world models at the All In conference (no relation to the podcast), and it gave me a chance to dig into one of the most mysterious corners of the AI world. The big players in the space are Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs and Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs — and while both have accumulated a lot of buzz and funding, they also rank pretty low on the trying-to-make-money scale.

本周，我在 All In 大会（与同名播客无关）上主持了一个关于“世界模型”的圆桌讨论，这让我有机会深入探究 AI 领域最神秘的角落之一。该领域的主要参与者是 Yann LeCun 的 AMI Labs 和李飞飞的 World Labs——尽管这两家公司都积累了极高的关注度和资金，但在“尝试盈利”这一指标上，它们的排名却相当靠后。

At their core, world models are about automating spatial intelligence, so the field could head in lots of exciting and lucrative directions, from robotics to interactive video to more complex self-driving systems. But when I started to press on where we would actually see the tech commercialized, things got foggy. The closest thing I found to an authority was Michael Rabbat, a co-founder of AMI Labs and the company’s VP of World Models, who joined me on the panel. But when I pressed him on exactly what the company was working on, he was cagey. “We’ll talk about it when we’re ready to talk about it.”

从本质上讲，世界模型旨在实现空间智能的自动化，因此该领域可以向许多令人兴奋且有利可图的方向发展，从机器人技术到交互式视频，再到更复杂的自动驾驶系统。但当我开始追问这项技术究竟会在哪里实现商业化时，情况变得模糊起来。我找到的最接近权威的人士是 AMI Labs 的联合创始人兼世界模型副总裁 Michael Rabbat，他也参加了我的圆桌讨论。但当我追问公司具体在研发什么时，他却避而不谈。“等我们准备好谈论的时候，自然会谈的。”

Over email, he clarified, “We’re still in a research and building phase, so we’re not talking publicly about any product plans or timeline.” To be fair, AMI is less than a year old, so it’s fair enough to keep quiet. But this sort of caginess extends to the whole world-modeling space. World Labs’ Marble is probably the most fully developed product in the space, and its demos range from straightforward media creation, building explorable environments for video games, or CGI effects. There are robotics use cases too, but the whole platform seems more designed to demonstrate capabilities.

他在邮件中澄清道：“我们仍处于研究和构建阶段，因此我们不会公开讨论任何产品计划或时间表。”平心而论，AMI 成立还不到一年，保持低调是可以理解的。但这种谨慎态度延伸到了整个世界模型领域。World Labs 的 Marble 可能是该领域开发最成熟的产品，其演示范围涵盖了从简单的媒体创作、为电子游戏构建可探索环境，到 CGI 特效等多种应用。虽然也有机器人技术的用例，但整个平台似乎更多是为了展示其能力。

That secrecy even extends to these companies’ suppliers. On the sidelines of the same conference, I spoke to Alex de Vigan, CEO of Physicl — a data supplier for the burgeoning world model business. He says he knows Physicl’s data has been useful for whatever they’re building, but he’s still in the dark about what exactly that is. “I wish they would tell us more. We could build more useful data if we knew what they were working on,” de Vigan told me.

这种保密甚至延伸到了这些公司的供应商身上。在同一场会议的间隙，我采访了 Physicl 的首席执行官 Alex de Vigan，这是一家为新兴世界模型业务提供数据的供应商。他说他知道 Physicl 的数据对他们正在构建的东西很有用，但他对具体是什么仍一无所知。“我希望他们能告诉我们更多。如果我们知道他们在做什么，我们就能构建出更有用的数据，”de Vigan 告诉我。

Part of the mystery comes from how versatile world models are as an idea. The simplest version is a navigable map of the world, similar to the AI models that power self-driving cars. But the same modeling approach that helps a Waymo weave through traffic could also help a humanoid robot carry boxes, or turn a few minutes of video footage into an explorable environment. AMI has already dipped its toe in manufacturing, biomedicine, robotics, and even AI software for doctors through its Nabia partnership. Surely it won’t pursue all of those — but maybe one or two of them are standing out?

这种神秘感的部分原因在于“世界模型”这一概念的通用性。最简单的版本是世界的可导航地图，类似于驱动自动驾驶汽车的 AI 模型。但帮助 Waymo 在车流中穿梭的建模方法，同样可以帮助人形机器人搬运箱子，或者将几分钟的视频片段转化为可探索的环境。AMI 已经通过其 Nabia 合作伙伴关系涉足了制造业、生物医学、机器人技术，甚至是医生使用的 AI 软件。当然，它不可能同时追求所有这些领域——但也许其中一两个领域正在脱颖而出？

No one doubts that there are lots of viable businesses to be built on world model tech — and as long as it’s easy to fundraise, there’s no particular pressure to focus on one. In fact, there’s good reason not to. If AMI announced tomorrow that they had built a humanoid OpenClaw or a next-generation Hollywood rendering system, a lot of other labs would suddenly be very interested in the space. Soon, the lab would face potential competition from the other world model companies, the neolabs, and even OpenAI and Anthropic.

没人怀疑基于世界模型技术可以建立许多可行的业务——只要融资容易，就没有特别的压力去专注于某一个方向。事实上，不这样做也有充分的理由。如果 AMI 明天宣布他们已经构建了一个人形 OpenClaw 或下一代好莱坞渲染系统，许多其他实验室会突然对这个领域产生浓厚兴趣。很快，该实验室就会面临来自其他世界模型公司、新兴实验室，甚至 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 的潜在竞争。

In some ways, it’s the flip side of all that easy fundraising. Your competitors can fundraise, too — and the same money that lets you build under the radar is also funding lots of potential rivals once the path to market becomes clear. But even if that competition is inevitable, it’s best if you delay it for as long as possible, which means keeping quiet about exactly what you’re building. Cixin Liu fans will recognize this as a dark forest scenario: If you don’t know who else is in the woods, it’s best not to attract attention.

在某种程度上，这是融资过于容易带来的负面影响。你的竞争对手也可以融资——同样的资金既让你能够低调研发，一旦市场路径变得清晰，也会资助许多潜在的竞争对手。但即使这种竞争不可避免，最好还是尽可能推迟它，这意味着对你正在构建的具体内容保持沉默。刘慈欣的粉丝会认出这是一个“黑暗森林”场景：如果你不知道森林里还有谁，最好不要引起注意。