Physically Viable World Models: A Case for Query-Conditioned Embodied AI
World models for embodied AI must be physically viable: constructed to answer intervention queries by representing the physical structure governing action outcomes, rather than merely predicting future observations. Existing observation-predictive world models can produce visually plausible but physically wrong rollouts. This failure is structural; distinct physical systems can look identical yet diverge under intervention. We expose this problem with controlled benchmarks that fix the visible scene while varying latent physics. We show that such models may recommend infeasible actions, mispredict interaction outcomes, or certify unsafe behavior. We argue that embodied AI requires world m...
| Authors | Adam J. Thorpe, Stepan Tretiakov, Cheng-Hsi Hsiao et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 28 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 28 May 2026 |
Silytics shows public metadata from arXiv and links to the original. Information may be incomplete or out of date. Last refreshed 17 October 2026. Licenses and terms of the original apply to the work itself. Not financial, legal or professional advice.