mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

CaliBench: Are the Stochastic Dynamics of Video World Models Physically Calibrated?

arXiv 2608.16829 ↗First posted 17 Aug 2026cs.LG cs.AIcited by 3

On the map: World models → Video-generation world models and simulators

Abstract (arXiv)

Video world models approximate the stochastic distribution of physical outcomes through generative sampling, but existing benchmarks score individual generations or compare distributions coarsely over a whole dataset, leaving the fine-grained aleatoric uncertainty of specific phenomena untested. We introduce CaliBench, which scores outcomes in a physically interpretable discrete space - a bin index, a die face, a suit, a colour - rather than a learned feature space such as in FID, so the distance from a known reference distribution is measured directly. We curate outcome spaces whose reference is known in closed form (binomial Galton boards, Bernoulli forks, uniform dice/cards/lottery, a skewed European-roulette colour), enabling an exact calibration test. We decompose performance into two orthogonal axes that a single accuracy metric conflates: scorability, the fraction of generations yielding a scoreable outcome, and calibration, the total variation distance from the reference on that sample. A chi-squared test assesses significance; as calibration is its null hypothesis it can evidence only miscalibration, and at N=32 per cell detects only large deviations. We apply it to nine scenes and six image-to-video models (WAN-2.7, SeeDance-2.0, HappyHorse-1.0, Veo 3.1, Runway Gen-4.5, Cosmos3-Super), 32 generations each. Models consistently concentrate probability mass on a few outcomes rather than reproducing the reference. Most scene-model combinations are significantly miscalibrated, in the extreme collapsing to one outcome, as Veo 3.1 does on dice. On roulette, generations often leave the ball ambiguously placed, giving several models low scorability. Performance varies by scene: no model dominates all nine. We release the protocol and a metric (mean normalised total variation, mnTV) for comparing new models against our results.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Video-generation world models and simulators, one of 11 directions in World models. Builds on 18 of its 33 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 17 Aug 2026.

Builds on

18 of 33 references.

Closest ancestors · 4

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026WBench: A Comprehensive Multi-turn Benchmark for Interactive Video World Model Evaluation25 May
  2. 2025Simulating the Visual World with Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap11 Nov
  3. 2025VBench-2.0: Advancing Video Generation Benchmark Suite for Intrinsic Faithfulness27 Mar
  4. 2024Consistency-diversity-realism Pareto fronts of conditional image generative models14 Jun

Other references · 14

  1. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,847
  2. 2023VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Modelscited by 1,822
  3. 2018Towards Accurate Generative Models of Video: A New Metric & Challengescited by 1,234
  4. 2019Improved Precision and Recall Metric for Assessing Generative Modelscited by 944
  5. 2018Assessing Generative Models via Precision and Recallcited by 406
  6. 2025Do generative video models understand physical principles?cited by 161
  7. 2018On GANs and GMMscited by 62
  8. 2024Fr'echet Video Motion Distance: A Metric for Evaluating Motion Consistency in Videoscited by 58
  9. 2026Inference-time Physics Alignment of Video Generative Models with Latent World Modelscited by 37
  10. 2024Beyond FVD: Enhanced Evaluation Metrics for Video Generation Qualitycited by 22
  11. 2025TiViBench: Benchmarking Think-in-Video Reasoning for Video Generative Modelscited by 19
  12. 2025World Models That Know When They Don't Know - Controllable Video Generation with Calibrated Uncertaintycited by 17
2 more
  1. 2025World Consistency Score: A Unified Metric for Video Generation Qualitycited by 6
  2. 2025How Confident are Video Models? Empowering Video Models to Express their Uncertaintycited by 6

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Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

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  1. 2026PhyGround: Benchmarking Physical Reasoning in Generative World Models
  2. 2026World Models Need a Physical Registry: Learning Internal Predictive States for Physically Plausible World Models
  3. 2026MBench: A Comprehensive Benchmark on Memory Capability for Video World Models
  4. 2025WorldModelBench: Judging Video Generation Models As World Models
  5. 2026World Models' Last Exam in Physics
  6. 2026Sampling headroom is not selection gain: a compute-value audit of test-time scaling for video world models
  7. 2026WorldMemBench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Memory of Video World Models
  8. 2026CRONOS: Benchmarking Counterfactual Physical Consistency in Video Models