After LLMs: Spatial Intelligence and World Models — Fei-Fei Li & Justin Johnson, World Labs

What It Covers

Fei-Fei Li and Justin Johnson discuss World Labs' spatial intelligence vision, their Marble 3D world generation model, and moving beyond language models to AI systems that understand three-dimensional space.

Key Questions Answered

• •Spatial Intelligence Definition: AI systems need capability to reason, understand, move and interact in 3D space - complementary to linguistic intelligence, not replacement for traditional language models.
• •Marble Architecture: Generates 3D worlds from text/images using Gaussian splats as atomic units, enabling real-time rendering on mobile devices with precise camera control unlike frame-by-frame video models.
• •Physics Integration: Current models learn visual patterns without causal understanding of forces - future versions could attach physical properties to splats or use classical physics engines for simulation.
• •Academic vs Industry Balance: Modern AI requires million-fold more compute than AlexNet era - academia should focus on theoretical understanding and experimental architectures rather than competing on scale.