If we use world models to train AI systems, are we not essentially forcing something to live so it can gather data for us?

Yes, we haven't gone that far with creating consciousness yet, but there is gonna be a lot of money around neural computing devices for consumers in the coming decades, so that will speed up knowing what sense data you need for consciousness.

> are we not essentially forcing something to live so it can gather data for us?

Wait until you learn about what we do to chickens.