# ACT-Bench: Towards Action Controllable World Models for Autonomous Driving

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.05337 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05337/

## Key facts

- Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in World models for autonomous driving, one of 11 directions in World models.
- Builds on 20 of its 75 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Dec 2024.

## Placed in

- World models / [World models for autonomous driving](https://mlsanity.com/wm/world-models-for-autonomous-driving/)
- End-to-end autonomous driving / [Generative simulation for driving](https://mlsanity.com/driving/generative-simulation-for-driving/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [Decoupled Weight Decay Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.05101/) (2017)
- [Dream to Control: Learning Behaviors by Latent Imagination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01603/) (2019)
- [Mastering Diverse Domains through World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04104/) (2023)
- [Towards Accurate Generative Models of Video: A New Metric & Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01717/) (2018)
- [GAIA-1: A Generative World Model for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.17080/) (2023)
- [Network In Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.4400/) (2013)
- [Metric3Dv2: A Versatile Monocular Geometric Foundation Model for Zero-shot Metric Depth and Surface Normal Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15506/) (2024)
- [Vista: A Generalizable Driving World Model with High Fidelity and Versatile Controllability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17398/) (2024)
- [VADv2: End-to-End Vectorized Autonomous Driving via Probabilistic Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13243/) (2024)
- [DriveDreamer: Towards Real-world-driven World Models for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09777/) (2023)
- [Visual Foresight: Model-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00568/) (2018)
- [Open-MAGVIT2: An Open-Source Project Toward Democratizing Auto-regressive Visual Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.04410/) (2024)
- [Is Sora a World Simulator? A Comprehensive Survey on General World Models and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.03520/) (2024)
- [ADriver-I: A General World Model for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13549/) (2023)
- [Toward General-Purpose Robots via Foundation Models: A Survey and Meta-Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08782/) (2023)
- [CoVLA: Comprehensive Vision-Language-Action Dataset for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10845/) (2024)
- [Learning and Leveraging World Models in Visual Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00504/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [A Survey: Learning Embodied Intelligence from Physical Simulators and World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00917/) (2025)
- [ReSim: Reliable World Simulation for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09981/) (2025)
- [Foundation Models in Autonomous Driving: A Survey on Scenario Generation and Scenario Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.11526/) (2025)
- [The Role of World Models in Shaping Autonomous Driving: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10498/) (2025)
- [WorldLens: Full-Spectrum Evaluations of Driving World Models in Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.10958/) (2025)
- [WorldRoamBench: An Open-World Benchmark for Long-Horizon Stability of Interactive World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31672/) (2026)
- [Towards Interactive Video World Modeling: Frontiers, Challenges, Benchmarks, and Future Trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.01164/) (2026)
- [Can Test-Time Scaling Improve World Foundation Model?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.24320/) (2025)
- [The Safety Challenge of World Models for Embodied AI Agents: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.05865/) (2025)
- [WorldExam: Benchmarking World Models from Apparent Appearance to Inherent Reactivity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.02603/) (2026)
- [The Intervention Gap in Latent World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.29998/) (2026)
- [AutoWorldModel-Bench: A State-Centric Benchmark for Automated World-Model Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.11216/) (2026)
- [World Models for Embodied Intelligence: From Plausible to Controllable to Actionable](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16697/) (2026)
- [VehDyn: A Driving World Model Benchmark for Vehicle Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33264/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

World models have emerged as promising neural simulators for autonomous driving, with the potential to supplement scarce real-world data and enable closed-loop evaluations. However, current research primarily evaluates these models based on visual realism or downstream task performance, with limited focus on fidelity to specific action instructions - a crucial property for generating targeted simulation scenes. Although some studies address action fidelity, their evaluations rely on closed-source mechanisms, limiting reproducibility. To address this gap, we develop an open-access evaluation framework, ACT-Bench, for quantifying action fidelity, along with a baseline world model, Terra. Our benchmarking framework includes a large-scale dataset pairing short context videos from nuScenes with corresponding future trajectory data, which provides conditional input for generating future video frames and enables evaluation of action fidelity for executed motions. Furthermore, Terra is trained on multiple large-scale trajectory-annotated datasets to enhance action fidelity. Leveraging this framework, we demonstrate that the state-of-the-art model does not fully adhere to given instructions, while Terra achieves improved action fidelity. All components of our benchmark framework will be made publicly available to support future research.