LLMs and World Models, Part 1

In the long-ago times, before large-scale generative AI came on the scene, machine-learning systems had some problems: often they didn't learn the general concepts we were trying to teach them, but rather solved problems using "shortcuts" or "surface heuristics." This post examines whether modern large language models have developed genuine "world models" or are merely exploiting sophisticated statistical shortcuts in their training data—a debate currently dividing the AI research community.