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AI Can Now Build Worlds

Often called the “godmother of AI“, Fei-Fei Li has had a huge impact on modern AI.

In 2009, she helped create ImageNet, a huge collection of images that taught computers how to recognize objects. A Stanford professor and former chief AI scientist at Google Cloud, she went on to found her own company: World Labs.

World Labs focuses on a different frontier of AI: not language, but space. The startup is building world models - AI systems that can understand 3D environments and generate them from scratch.

The company has just released Marble, an AI tool that turns text prompts, photos, videos, or room layouts into editable 3D environments.

What that means in practice:

• You type “a cozy café at sunset”, and Marble produces a 3D world you can use inside game engines, VR headsets, or animation tools. It’s a much quicker way to build digital spaces that take teams of artists weeks to create.

• Most world-models today generate scenes “on the go,” which causes them to glitch as you move. Marble produces stable “worlds“, making it more useful for real production work in gaming, film, and robotics.

Here’s why that matters for AI: Robots need to understand physical space to move safely. They need to know where objects are, how far, and what happens when they turn or reach for something. To train them, companies often build simulated environments - and Marble makes generating those simulations much easier.

As she puts it, “Our dreams of truly intelligent machines will not be complete without spatial intelligence.”

Finally, a Fix for Every Indian Abroad

For years, the 35.4 million Indians living abroad have struggled with an annoyingly simple problem: paying routine bills for family back home.

If you were abroad and needed to pay a bill in India, you had two options: either send money to someone in India and ask them to handle it, or try paying the bill yourself with a foreign card - which meant high fees or failed payments.

Now, fintech company Aspora (used by the Indian diaspora to send money home) is fixing that. The company has rolled out a new feature that lets Indians abroad pay bills directly - no Indian bank account, no intermediaries, no extra fees.

How it works:

• Aspora is plugged directly into India’s Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) using Yes Bank’s infrastructure.

• This gives its users access to 22,000+ billers, including electricity providers, broadband operators, and major banks.

• Aspora isn’t charging extra for these payments. Users pay in foreign currency at competitive exchange rates, and the bill is settled instantly in India.

The company tested the feature with a few thousand users and found mobile recharges were one of the most popular use cases.

For Aspora, this feature is also a smart business move: CEO Parth Garg says it will get users to return to the app more often. Instead of sending money once or twice a month, users now have more reasons to engage with Aspora regularly.

The feature is live in the UK, with rollout to the US and UAE coming soon - both major remittance markets for India.

Is It Cheating If AI Helps?

South Korea’s top universities (the elite “SKY” schools) are in chaos after dozens of students were caught using AI tools to cheat on their midterms.

At Yonsei University, a professor reviewing webcam footage found students using textbooks, programs, and even ChatGPT during an online exam about ChatGPT. Forty students have already admitted to cheating.

Seoul National University and Korea University have reported their own AI cheating scandals, forcing some classes to redo entire exams. For a country where test scores are integral in deciding students’ future, this has sparked a huge debate about whether the education system is outdated.

Some students say AI is now part of everyday learning, so banning it makes no sense. Others say using it offers an unfair advantage. What do you think?