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Evaluating the World Model Implicit in a Generative Model

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arxiv 2406.03689 v3 pith:HQQG2GM6 submitted 2024-06-06 cs.CL cs.AI

classification cs.CLcs.AI
keywords modelmodelsworldgenerativedomainsassessevaluationlanguage
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Recent work suggests that large language models may implicitly learn world models. How should we assess this possibility? We formalize this question for the case where the underlying reality is governed by a deterministic finite automaton. This includes problems as diverse as simple logical reasoning, geographic navigation, game-playing, and chemistry. We propose new evaluation metrics for world model recovery inspired by the classic Myhill-Nerode theorem from language theory. We illustrate their utility in three domains: game playing, logic puzzles, and navigation. In all domains, the generative models we consider do well on existing diagnostics for assessing world models, but our evaluation metrics reveal their world models to be far less coherent than they appear. Such incoherence creates fragility: using a generative model to solve related but subtly different tasks can lead to failures. Building generative models that meaningfully capture the underlying logic of the domains they model would be immensely valuable; our results suggest new ways to assess how close a given model is to that goal.

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Cited by 4 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. What Does it Mean for a Neural Network to Learn a "World Model"?

    cs.AI 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Defines a world model as a simple commutative-diagram factorization through an intermediate representation, with conditions that the model be learned and emergent rather than inherited from input or output.

  2. Modeling Open-World Cognition as On-Demand Synthesis of Probabilistic Models

    cs.CL 2025-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A hybrid language-model and probabilistic-program architecture predicts human judgments on novel open-world reasoning vignettes better than language-model-only baselines.

  3. Potemkin Understanding in Large Language Models

    cs.CL 2025-06 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    LLMs frequently pass definition questions yet fail to use the same concepts in classification, generation, and editing tasks, a gap the authors call potemkin understanding.

  4. Quo Vadis, World Modeling?

    cs.CV 2026-08 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    An agent-centric reframing of world modeling, replacing physical state prediction with 'information transitions' organized into six proxy functions and three empowerment levels.

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