New Delhi, April 29 -- PROJECT GENIE, an experimental artificial-intelligence model released by Google in January, is a jaw-dropping technical achievement. Give the tool a prompt-an image, say, or a brief snippet of text-and it will generate an interactive world for the user to explore. Type in a straightforward request, and the result is a realistic simulation. Start with a painting by Georges Seurat, by contrast, and you can wander through a Sunday in the park in perfect pointillist style.

Project Genie may feel like a video game, but its makers claim it is something much more profound. They call it a "world model", an essential tool to help AI systems make sense of the complex, unpredictable physical spaces into which many will eventu...