Robotics & World Models Reading Club 18: Causal World Models For Real-World Intelligence. SF 07/18

​Robotics & World Models Reading Club 18: Causal World Models For Real-World Intelligence — San Francisco 07/18

A high-signal reading group for AI researchers & builders pushing the frontiers of robotic world models, WAMs, and embodied intelligence. In our previous sessions, we brought together researchers and engineers from Boston Dynamics, Google DeepMind, NVIDIA, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Dyna, Physical Intelligence, Tesla, Generalist, Rhoda AI, and leading Bay Area robotics startups.

Hosted by Junfan Zhu & Aurora Feng.

​​​​​Reading Club 18's Core Theme

Causal World Models For Real-World Intelligence

Aether AI has raised $20M to build causal world models that understand mechanisms.

Keynote by Biwei Huang (Professor at UCSD)

​​​​​​​Pre-Readings

​​​​​Location

San Francisco (Downtown)

​​​​​​​​Date & Time

Saturday, July 18, 2026 | 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM

​​​​​​​​​Join Discord Community

https://discord.gg/WH7DrTHRXK

​​​​​​​​Follow Saturday Robotics on X

https://x.com/saturdayrobotic

​​​​​​​​Agenda

2:00 PM – 2:30 PM Door Opens & Social

• Food 😋, beverages🧋 and UNLIMITED strawberries 🍓 (our official reading club fruits ☺️😄).

2:30 PM – 4:00 PM Keynote by Biwei Huang, Professor UCSD (https://biweihuang.com/)

Online access via Zoom: TBD

YouTube Recording: TBD (We are looking for recording volunteers)

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM Q&A, ​open-floor roundtable (10–20 min per topic) on spotlight papers or any paper you’d like to highlight. Feel free to share why the paper matters and its technical details.

​​​​​​​Future events

​​​​​​Past events

#reading-club-12-0613: Origami Robotics (YC W26) on Dexterity

• Session 12 Luma: https://luma.com/5w7c1t2a

• Reading Club 12 Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2066275974988337178?s=20

• Reading Club 12 Recap: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2066278639554245097?s=20

#cvpr-denver-11-0606: 🤖🥘 Saturday Robotics x Manycore Tech x Neural Motion | CVPR 2026 Denver Research Night | Robotics & World Models Reading Club 11

Junfan Zhu & Aurora Feng, Founders of Saturday Robotics

Anthony Zhao, Head of North America at Manycore Tech SpacialVerse

Aurora Feng, Founder at Neural Motion. NM-GenET.

Max Zhaoshuo Li, Robotics and World Model Tech Lead at NVIDIA Cosmos. Cosmos 3.

Xiaofan Li, World Model Tech Lead at X Square Robot. WALL-WM.

Zesen Zhao, University of Michigan. Test-Time Scaling for World Action Models via Zero-Shot Geometric Verification.

Pengyi Liao. VGGT-Ω: From 3D Reconstruction to Scalable Spatial Representation.

Jie Wang, University of Pennsylvania, GRASP Lab. Toward a Robotics MMLU: Lessons from Sim & Real Evaluations of Generalist Policies.

Gordon Qian, Senior AI Researcher at Snap. Diffusion-DRF: Free, Rich, and Differentiable Reward for Video Diffusion Fine-Tuning.

• YouTube livestream: https://www.youtube.com/live/P_3gSC-5cYM?si=530zqf2NscCq643O

• CVPR Denver Research Night Luma: https://luma.com/zamm9g2g

• CVPR Denver Research Night Lightning Talks Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2065102150418788581?s=20

• CVPR Denver Research Night Lightning Talks Recap: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2065104616497524843?s=20

• CVPR Hot Takes Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2065234892653547904?s=20

• CVPR Hot Takes Recap: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2065236892988416166?s=20

#reading-club-10-0530: Bringing Robots to Life — Learning Humanoid Instincts from the Body Up | San Francisco 0530

Haochen Shi (Stanford, co-advised by Karen Liu & Shuran Song)

• Session 10 Luma: https://luma.com/czz76qe1

• Reading Club 10 Recap: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2061145697693683878?s=20

#private-dinner-01-0529: Robo Plov x Saturday Robotics

• Private Dinner 01 Luma: https://luma.com/3rzqwond

• Private Dinner 01 Review: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/junfan-zhu_saturday-robotics-was-excited-to-host-its-activity-7466384182190182400-Zgnv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABxP-p0BpUNGDf347aKh_1uJAPzG4er0As8

#reading-club-09-0523: CVPR Warm-up & Founders Spotlight — DeltaWorld + VisuoTactile Dexterous Hands

Tommie Kerssies (Amazon Frontier AI & Robotics)

Arjun Subramaniam (Factory Intelligence)

• Session 09 Luma: https://luma.com/wooiz0bf

• Reading Club 09 Review: Part 1: Robotics & World Model Reading Club 9.1: CVPR Warm-up— ​A Frame is Worth 1 Token: DeltaToken. https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2058449627184267621?s=20

• Reading Club 09 Review: Part 2: Robotics & World Model Reading Club 9.2: Tactile Sensor & Reliable Manipulation in Production. https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2058461947637694948?s=20

#reading-club-08-0516: Embodied Human Data as the “Internet of Motion and Behavior”

Ryan Punamiya (NVIDIA Gear, Georgia Tech)

• Session 08 Luma: https://luma.com/qoxioge7

• Reading Club 08 Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2055915875493204439?s=20

#reading-club-07-0509: Learning to Dream: World Models, Imagination, Path to Foundation Models for Control

Ahmet Şemi ASARKAYA (Agility Robotics)

• Session 07 Luma: https://luma.com/srhe0vuo

• Reading Club 07 Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2053387034241454397?s=20

#reading-club-06-0502: Evolution of Video World Models for Robotics

Tongzhou Mu (Rhoda AI)

• Session 06 Luma: https://luma.com/sdrd4zwr

• Reading Club 06 Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2050834699275383008?s=20

#reading-club-05-0425: World Models for Physical Intelligence: From Predictive Brains to Embodied Robots

Daniel Dugas & Sergio Arnaud (Meta FAIR)

• Session 05 Luma: https://luma.com/p7zvpyvg

• Reading Club 05 Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2048315020946317710?s=20

• YouTube Recording: https://youtu.be/RVy6oQXNDgc?si=u2VLtCBjfdMvXaf-

#reading-club-04-0418: Abstractions of the Physical World for Decision-Making

Siming He (UC Berkeley)

• Session 04 Luma: https://luma.com/atv7bm3i

• Reading Club 04 Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2045770010979905862

• YouTube Recording: https://www.youtube.com/@saturdayrobotic

#reading-club-03-0411: Robotic Policy Adaptation

Haoyi Niu (UC Berkeley)

• Session 03 Luma: https://luma.com/561xgirg

• Reading Club 03 Review: https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2043243484568768519?s=20

• YouTube Recording: https://www.youtube.com/@saturdayrobotic

#reading-club-02-0404: JEPA Zoo

Julian Saks (https://x.com/JulianSaks)

• Session 02 Luma: https://luma.com/g3qrrti0

• Reading Club 02 Review (liked by Yann LeCun on X): https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2040716119259164673?s=20

#reading-club-01-0328

• Session 01 Luma: https://luma.com/8s4w1wu6

• Reading Club 01 Review (liked by Yann LeCun on X): https://x.com/junfanzhu98/status/2038153945219305812

​​​​​​​​Logistics

Spots are limited. Please arrive by 2:00 PM for check-in. Keynote will begin promptly at 2:30 PM.

• We currently do not have volunteers available to assist with late check-ins. Given the high volume of inquiries and 100+ attendees (both online and onsite), we kindly ask that you arrive on time to ensure smooth entry.