# Beyond Instance Slots: Semantically Rich World Models for Physical Interaction Planning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.22294 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.22294/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Embodied and robot world models, one of 11 directions in World models.
- Builds on 9 of its 17 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Aug 2026.

## Placed in

- World models / [Embodied and robot world models](https://mlsanity.com/wm/embodied-and-robot-world-models/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [DINO-WM: World Models on Pre-trained Visual Features enable Zero-shot Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04983/) (2024)
- [LeWorldModel: Stable End-to-End Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture from Pixels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19312/) (2026)
- [The Surprising Effectiveness of Representation Learning for Visual Imitation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.01511/) (2021)
- [OA-WAM: Object-Addressable World Action Model for Robust Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.06481/) (2026)
- [Predictive but Not Plannable: RC-aux for Latent World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07278/) (2026)
- [MaskWAM: Unifying Mask Prompting and Prediction for World-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.13515/) (2026)
- [Slot-MPC: Goal-Conditioned Model Predictive Control with Object-Centric Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14937/) (2026)
- [Unifying Object-Centric World Models and Diffusion Policy: A Hierarchical Framework for Multi-Stage Robotic Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.08775/) (2026)
- [Learning Action-Conditional and Object-Centric Gaussian Splatting World Models for Rigid Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.01950/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Underwater C3-JEPA: An Object-Centric Cross-View World Model for ROV Salvage](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.30214/) (2026)
- [RoleWorld: Knowledge Transfer in World Modeling with Functional Role Abstractions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13172/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

World models for physical interaction are typically trained to predict future observations or latent features; however, a planning-oriented model must answer a fundamentally different question: whether a candidate action produces a task consistent future while preserving essential relations. Monolithic state representations obscure the underlying entities, while standard instance-level object slots merely identify what is present without specifying what role each entity plays in the task context. To bridge this gap, we present the Semantically Rich World Model (SR-WM), a task-conditioned world model structured around five functional roles: gripper, target, goal, relation, and phase. Within SR-WM, a visual entity encoder extracts soft entity hypotheses from pretrained patch features, allowing segmentation masks to serve as optional proposal priors without mandating them as required state representations or inference inputs. A role binder subsequently maps these hypotheses to task-specific roles, while an action conditioned dynamics model predicts role transitions alongside fine-grained semantics, including grasp/contact, predicate establishment, relation preservation, fixture state, and phase change. Crucially, this unified role state grounds downstream multi-candidate action generation, stage-aware reranking, and violation-aware suffix resampling. Our comprehensive evaluation protocol spans all four LIBERO simulation suites, cross-suite transfer, perception diagnostics, and action sensitivity analysis. Ultimately, this formulation transforms object-centric prediction into a semantic interface linking visual dynamics with planning-oriented decision making