World Models and the Future of Spatial AI with Justin Johnson - #775

Justin Johnson, co-founder of World Labs, explores the emerging field of spatial AI and world models—systems that can understand, generate, and simulate 3D environments. He discusses the divide between explicit 3D representations and generative approaches, and why there is still no consensus on how to build these models. The conversation covers World Labs’ Marble system, which creates navigable 3D worlds from images, the open challenges of evaluating world models, and the role of simulation, planning, and action. Johnson also shares his vision for unified models that could power interactive virtual environments and agents that operate in the physical world.