# One Model, Two Physical Stories: Auditing Misalignment in Multi-Modal World Modeling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.14833 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.14833/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Latent predictive world models, one of 11 directions in World models.
- Builds on 6 of its 14 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Sep 2026.

## Placed in

- World models / [Latent predictive world models](https://mlsanity.com/wm/latent-predictive-world-models/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Mastering Diverse Domains through World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04104/) (2023)
- [V-JEPA 2: Self-Supervised Video Models Enable Understanding, Prediction and Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09985/) (2025)
- [Cosmos 3: Omnimodal World Models for Physical AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.02800/) (2026)
- [Interpreting Physics in Video World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.07050/) (2026)
- [Quantifying the Gap between Understanding and Generation within Unified Multimodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.02140/) (2026)
- [Causal Physics Steering in Video World Models via Concept Activation Vectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.24322/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

World models, systems that generate what happens next given current environmental conditions, are increasingly being implemented with multi-modal generation in mind. However, generating multiple modalities simultaneously, such as visual simulations alongside physical state predictions in the form of text, introduces the risk of cross-modal inconsistency. Tested separately, both outputs may look convincing while still disagreeing: a model can calculate that a ball should rebound in one modality, then generate no rebound in another modality, to say nothing of diverging from real-world dynamics entirely. In this work we focus on two failures explicitly: Internal misalignment, the disagreement between the world model's generated video and the same world model's prediction in a different modalities, and external misalignment the disagreement between the world model's generation and an analytic physical environment. We derive common contracts of event, magnitude, timing, and construct a physics grounded pipeline to make comparisons measurable in both external and internal settings. We then ask whether progressively supplying the model's own contract (the A ladder for the internal setting) or a corrected physical contract (the B ladder for the external setting) closes the respective gaps. Across four mechanisms and 20 settings, we find that while language answers all 22 text probes correctly with respect to the true environment, the neutral video is often in disagreement, suggesting that the current unified backbones may not be capable of correct reasoning, internal consistency, and external physical fidelity all at once.