LLMs vs. the World (Models)

Sometimes, things come in waves. Like in 1997 when we got not one, but two disaster movies about volcanoes in Dante's Peak and yes, Volcano. Or the following year when we got two movies about asteroids coming to destroy the world in Armageddon and Deep Impact. Now we seem to be having such a moment around the formation of companies to build "World Models" it seems.

Just last week, I wrote about the notion that Meta may soon find themselves in a battle with their (soon to be) former Chief AI Scientist if and when Yann LeCun breaks away to form a new startup focused on building World Models. I noted in passing that there were a number of other startups already working in the general space, but then came news today that another name is entering the arena, and it's a big one; an asteroid, as it were: Jeff Bezos.