ik, "world model" has too many definitions at this point. imo the bar is just: can it simulate the world.

Not really. Whether you agree with LeCun's assertion that "LLMs Are a Dead End" or not, world modeling is the same domain. "World Modeling" in this post is confusing because it seems to reference the deep, specific machine learning that goes into these frontier world models and self-driving cars, where it's really just vibe coding turned at the problem of modeling the sort of 3D worlds you'd find in a video game.