Royal Society special issue on world models features Hofstadter, Levin, Tenenbaum, Mitchell
hardmaru · x · 2026-09-12
A Royal Society special issue, "World Models in Natural and Artificial Intelligence," co-edited by Hardmaru, gathers pioneers across AI, biology, and philosophy arguing that true intelligence requires modeling causality, the self, and the physical world—not just language.
- Contributors include Douglas Hofstadter, Michael Levin, Josh Tenenbaum, Samuel Gershman, and Melanie Mitchell
- Central question: do LLMs actually understand the world or just pretend, and does it matter?
- Key claim: capability is not the same as true intelligence; foundation models lack emergent understanding
- Radical hypothesis: the next leap in AI may require systems that model themselves, not just more data
More from AGI Musings
- Gary Marcus pushes back on prediction that Anthropic defectors will return within 6 months — GaryMarcus · 2026-09-12
- OpenAI Wasn't 'Out of Control' — It Was a Calculated Trade-off, Argues User — kchonyc · 2026-09-12
- EA grant platform hires FTX's Caroline Ellison, drawing fire over alignment judgment — zetalyrae · 2026-09-12
- RL debate: REINFORCE is both policy gradient descent and a synthetic data method — jessi_cata · 2026-09-12
- OpenAI was never 'out of control' — it could always shut down its data centers, argues critic — kchonyc · 2026-09-12
- ARC-AGI cost collapse: DeepSeek-V4-Flash hits 87% at $0.021/task vs o3's $4,500 — inductionheads · 2026-09-12