I hesitate to recast the discussion in a negative tone, but this doesn't sound right on technical terms.
Is World Labs' Atlas genuinely novel? Their demos do not seem to be better than the existing state of the art.
Fei Fei Li has been criticized even in the ImageNet days as a shower than a doer. Her roadshow past two years extolling "world model" in vague terms didn't show much insight, and her company's demo seems to merely rehash what has been available in the field for years. If you haven't seen the current SoTA in Gaussian splats, then World Labs' demos may seem cool, but they are mostly standard in the field now. If someone is more familiar with the inner workings of World Labs, I am happy to be corrected (but inner details wouldn't change the fact that demos are no better than SoTA).
I really had high hopes for World Labs, but I am quite saddened to realize that perhaps all this was just a financial maneuver and the detractors were right from the beginning.
source: I used to be in the downstream field: Gaussian spats for robotics. The exact field that World Labs' is supposed to help.
> has been criticized even in the ImageNet days as a shower than a doer
When has the world ever rewarded doers? It has almost always rewarded the showers. If it rewarded the doers:
* CTOs would be regarded more highly than CEOs
* A few key Apple engineers would be more well known than Steve Jobs
* Nikola Tesla would be more famous than Edison
> this was just a financial maneuver
I mean, if you could have a couple billion dollars now OR possibly $0 when OpenAI/Anthropic's models can eventually do what yours can do, I wouldn't blame you for taking the former.
I think the model is legit but not worth 8 billion dollars, nor is there much secret sauce. I'm at a series C company and I think we're pretty confident we have the resources to reproduce it internally.
quanto · · focus · HN ↗
Is World Labs' Atlas genuinely novel? Their demos do not seem to be better than the existing state of the art.
Fei Fei Li has been criticized even in the ImageNet days as a shower than a doer. Her roadshow past two years extolling "world model" in vague terms didn't show much insight, and her company's demo seems to merely rehash what has been available in the field for years. If you haven't seen the current SoTA in Gaussian splats, then World Labs' demos may seem cool, but they are mostly standard in the field now. If someone is more familiar with the inner workings of World Labs, I am happy to be corrected (but inner details wouldn't change the fact that demos are no better than SoTA).
I really had high hopes for World Labs, but I am quite saddened to realize that perhaps all this was just a financial maneuver and the detractors were right from the beginning.
source: I used to be in the downstream field: Gaussian spats for robotics. The exact field that World Labs' is supposed to help.
qurren · · focus · HN ↗
> has been criticized even in the ImageNet days as a shower than a doer
When has the world ever rewarded doers? It has almost always rewarded the showers. If it rewarded the doers:
* CTOs would be regarded more highly than CEOs
* A few key Apple engineers would be more well known than Steve Jobs
* Nikola Tesla would be more famous than Edison
> this was just a financial maneuver
I mean, if you could have a couple billion dollars now OR possibly $0 when OpenAI/Anthropic's models can eventually do what yours can do, I wouldn't blame you for taking the former.
itemize123 · · focus · HN ↗
qurren · · focus · HN ↗