Godmother of AI: The Missing Piece of Intelligence LLMs Can't See | Fei-Fei Li

What if the most powerful language models on Earthare missing the one piece that makes intelligence real? Fei-Fei Li is the "Godmother of AI" who built thedataset that made modern artificial intelligencepossible, spent years leading Stanford's AI Lab,and now runs World Labs, a $1 billion startupbuilding the next frontier of AI. Fei-Fei Li reveals the missing piece of intelligencethat language models can't see, the four abilitiesthat make it up, and what her billion-dollar startupis racing to build to solve it. Listen to the full episode here! Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/episode/1FvQHmEJoGUARR2EY6AEWk?si=5Cg_cgN4RaiaC4UkIDaH-A Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/il/podcast/silicon-valley-girl-ai-tech-and-career-growth/id1819090545?i=1000774171967 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/subu-xHrp1w?si=2nyuRfaTPdHTs8s-

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 0:39Speaker 02

  I remember telling my boss, "It'll be good for the brand," when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.

• 0:47Speaker 01

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• 1:00Marina Mogilko?

  You know what I think will help this conversation? Because when I'm thinking about my kids' education, I want to imagine a workplace where they're going to be. So when I was growing up, the workplace is, "Big company, you're doing this. And so in order to get there, you need to study this, this, and that." Can you paint me a picture of a workplace or a company in 10 years? What does it look like? What should people be preparing for?

• 1:22Speaker 04

  Agency. I think AI will give people more agency. So a lot of the future of work, I think, will rely on people who knows, who know how to use these tools in very effective way. So let me give you a concrete example. We, one of the very COVIDed jobs in Silicon Valley in the past 20 years is product manager. You know, there's a lot of conversations of the shifting nature of product management job. It used to be, 10 years ago, fairly standard product manager's job

• 2:02Speaker 04

  is more the thread between users, markets, and engineers. They're more like conductors. They don't have to code. They, fairly often, they were not software engineers. So if they want a prototype, they go to a designer, they go to a software engineer, they get a prototype, and then they send the prototype to users and they listen to the users and synthesize the feedback. And that lifecycle of product management might take typically months, you know, in a company. Today, if you look at the job of product manager,

• 2:47Speaker 04

  actually, a lot of companies are experimenting with different things. But there are some fundamental changes. A lot of product managers just now codes themselves. They don't have to wait to prototype from a team of people. They can use AI to help to design something very simple and vibe code. So that part shortens the lifecycle. Doesn't mean we should get rid of designers or software engineer, but it just saves time. And so that software engineer and designers can do much more sophisticated work. Also, user side, things are shifting. AI can actually simulate user behaviors.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  And there are much, much more efficient ways to reach to the users, to close the loop with users. So I'm looking at these young product managers. And when I look to hire them, I look for those who are riding the wave of changes. I don't look for those product managers who are still talking about the textbook workflow of even five years ago. So what I think the future of companies, there's a lot to imagine. And depending on the company, from healthcare to education, to whatever industry.

• 4:15Speaker 04

  But I think our workforce will be much more empowered or can be much more empowered by powerful tools like AI. So that personal agency, creativity, and also the boundaries of what a person can do and cannot do is just a lot more blurred and lowered. So to me, that's going to just fundamentally shift the structure of corporate America. And every student today should try to imagine who they want to be in that new structure.

• 5:00Marina Mogilko?

  It feels like you're describing entrepreneurs within workspace. Or you're like, either you're an entrepreneur or you're an entrepreneur with an organization, which means you're handling multiple things and you're responsible for multiple things.

• 5:11Speaker 05

  I mean, my hypothesis on this, you will get a barbell effect. And this is what we are seeing at MasterClass, where you have one group that are becoming the specialists. And it used to be, like, I remember in school, like, I was told to pick one area and just go deep in that, and that's how I build a long-term career. I think that's eroding, except if you're in the top one, if you're like the actual best. What I mean by this is, if I'm a copywriter, if I'm an okay one, anybody that now uses an LLM can do a decent job at that. But if you're the best in the world at it, or if you're in the top 1%, I can't beat you at it.

• 5:56Speaker 05

  And so we're seeing, A, the rise of people who are specialists that are very good at their thing. And I think that extends to tons of crafts. And then the other role we're seeing is this high-agency generalist, who's able to do lots of different things well and has really good skills on the judgment side, on the agency side. And those people, when you see them interact, is really neat. Because they then interact with somebody who's in the top 1% at their craft. And they're like, "Whoa, I couldn't do that." Right? And so my guess is that it's a bifurcation of those specialists and the people that can do lots of things well.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  The action's on the court. And as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats, merch, and more. Visit michelobultra.com/courtside to enter. Michelob Ultra Courtside, 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026 and ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them? That's bull spend. And marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  I remember telling my boss, "It'll be good for the brand," when leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Cut the bull spend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  That's interesting. And I agree with you. I think both, whether you're on the specialist side or generalist side, you both have agency.

• 7:47Speaker 05

  Yes, that's that. I think it's very different.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  And you should both be able to use tools in ways that's uniquely creative and deep, right? I'm already seeing this, right? For example, designers, you know, they bring so much human creativity, but I see some of them use all kinds of AI tools in ways I cannot personally imagine. So I know that's where their craftsmanship comes. And also, the word entrepreneurial. In Silicon Valley, that's almost like, "I'm going to do a Delaware Incorporated startup." And that's the label entrepreneur. And I disagree. I think the word entrepreneurial is very much a synonym to agency.

• 8:30Marina Mogilko?

  Yep.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  You know, it doesn't matter. You can be a doctor, specialty doctor. You can be a K-12 teacher. But agency is the key. And in the face of a technology that is so cognitively advanced, have...

• 8:49Speaker 04

  Be brave, have your human agency and command that technology, use that technology, get familiar with that technology, don't be afraid, don't shy away from it because that's where the the wheels of history is turning towards the future. And I think everybody, it doesn't have to be a Silicon Valley founder, everybody can be entrepreneurial for their craftsmanship or whatever they want to do.

• 9:16Marina Mogilko?

  You mentioned so many tools, like used tools, used tools. Can you give me example of some of the tools that have been transformational to your job?

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Obviously, all kinds of from ChatGPT to Gemini to Claude, I use it in many different ways. They have so many features from helping me to study some deep topics or to have a conversation. Here's a, here's a fun example. I'm in charge of laundry in my household, so every weekend I have to do loads and loads of laundry. And it used to be my audiobook time, but sometimes, sometimes I get bored just listening to audiobook. And and just about a few months ago, I realized I can have a conversation of a deep topic with AI as I was just folding laundry. And that has been so much fun.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  Somehow it's more even more motivating for me to go fold laundry because I can have me time with with AI to learn anything I want. And of course, software engineering has been completely transformed. And also, you know, on the art and design side, I mean, World Labs, we are creating models to help our creators and to imagine 3D worlds and all that. So we also see change in the creative world. Once again, that's also a very contentious area because some companies have positioned

• 10:50Speaker 04

  AI's creative tools as if it's a replacement. And I just deeply, deeply protest that positioning. I I think that human creativity, even just on the visual side, human creativity is so vast, but even just on the visual design side, is profoundly intertwined with our emotional intelligence, with the story we bring, with the values we bring, each creator's bring. I just think AI is such a powerful tool to help them solicit their, you know, express their creativity instead of to replace it.

• 11:33Marina Mogilko?

  Totally.

• 11:34Speaker 05

  Do you feel AI can never be very smart until it figures out spatial intelligence?

• 11:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, so this is the work I'm doing now in World Labs. So what is spatial intelligence? Spatial intelligence is a, a term that encompasses multiple abilities today that humans display in a, in a environment like this one, 3D environment. If we look at movement, we call it 4D environment. We can understand what's going on. I see people, I see equipments, I see this beautiful home. This is the understanding part of spatial intelligence. We can reason, if I want to go and, you know, go grab a bottle of water in the fridge, I

• 12:19Speaker 04

  have to reason about the space, reason about, I can go up the staircase, I can recognize the fridge, I reason about my movement. So that's reasoning. That's another part of spatial intelligence. A third part of spatial intelligence is generation, is that in my mind's eye, even though I'm not seeing your living room, but I actually have a view of what that living room looks like. If I'm a more, more, a better artist, I can actually generate a lot of visual 2D or 3D or 4D visual artifacts and pieces. So humans can generate a lot of space.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  And the fourth, last but not the least, a part of visual, sorry, spatial intelligence is interactivity, is how I focus on interacting with the space, right? Like how, again, laundry folding, that's my favorite weekend activity these days, that's deeply spatial. How you fold each piece of garment and now you hang them in the closet and all that is highly interactive. So spatial intelligence is these four things, understanding, reasoning, generation, and interaction. And we are working on that. We have made tremendous progress.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm saying collective we. You know, today you use, say, Nano Banana, or if you use GPT Image, that tool can actually help you to generate a lot of 2D imagery. It can actually explain to you what unknown flower is in your garden. That understanding is, is quite advanced. It can help, help you to reason. Now we can actually draw figures in, in AI tools. The generation part, right now, the more mature products on the 2D side, what World Labs is doing is on the 3D side.

• 14:32Speaker 04

  3D is so fundamental for robotic interaction, for truly controllable creativity, such as design, architecture, game development, VFX. So that's the piece we are working on.

• 14:48Marina Mogilko?

  Is it separate from LLMs? Like, I mean, do LLMs have their limit and then world models step in?

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Yes and no. I think they're complementary. You can think about humans, right? Just as you were saying, to, to put a basketball in the hoop. First of all, that's such a fast action that people don't like sit there and think and talk in their head. But I do think that is a, even that act itself is a highly complex, intelligent moment where language reasoning come in because you probably as an athlete, you are, you are clearly aware of the scoring this or missing this, what it means to the game or

• 15:40Speaker 04

  to the moment. And some of that is probably going on in a language way. But seeing the court, seeing the other players and, and aiming the ball, that is deeply spatial. And then orient, orienting your body, like knowing how to make that move is deeply physical. So, so many things we do in life is actually a mixture of language, linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence and physical intelligence. So to me, they're very complementary, they work together.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  I do deeply believe spatial is a huge piece of it. Evolution took 500 million plus years to get spatial intelligence to maturity. It took much, a much shorter time for language intelligence. So it's a very profound, ancient, fundamental, intelligent capability of animals and humans.

• 16:47Marina Mogilko?

  And how far away from understanding the fullness of it, like 100% of?

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Wow, I, as a scientist, I never know what's 100% because science itself is pushing the boundaries of unknown. If the goalpost is human intelligence, the challenge is we don't even know how far human intelligence is, right? We, we, we never know the, the boundary of human intelligence. But if you think the daily capability of humans, the average capabilities.

• 17:25Marina Mogilko?

  Laundry folding.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  Right. The, the, the, the, the cooking omelet, the laundry folding, the playing basketball. How far are we? We're not there yet. But is it gonna take 100 years? I don't think so. My, my goal is we could get there in my lifetime. And I think a lot of people are working on that. So that put a kind of a bound, right? I don't think it will take 100 years. It might not even take 50 years, but it's not gonna take one year either.

• 18:00Marina Mogilko?

  Well, what, what is your estimate? When does Dr. Fei-Fei Li retire from laundry folding on Sundays? How many years?

• 18:08Speaker 04

  Yesterday. Like I said, I don't know. Laundry folding itself is also involves physical embodiment. So that's, that, that also involves sensor technology and hardware technology. So that, so that goes a little bit more complex. But again, I'm hoping it's our lifetime.

• 18:34Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, me too. As a mom, I'm hoping.

• 18:36Speaker 05

  I, I mean, I know this is a term that you avoid for a whole host of factors, but my hypothesis would be you can't get anywhere close to what AGI, which I know is the word that you avoid for a host of reasons, is you can't even get close to it until we do the spatial intelligence. Because that's about, that's to read people, that's to interact in the world.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know, look, I'm not gonna fight the popularity of this word. It's just as a scholar, we always, the field in, in the academic world is called artificial intelligence. It's, it's, it's not scientifically rigorously clear what the G means here, right? So, but whatever, that's just a word that we, we can, it's just a nickname, I guess. Yeah, I agree with you, David. I think AI or intelligence is complex. I, I, I don't think the picture of AI will be complete without spatial intelligence.

• 19:39Marina Mogilko?

  If you want to stay ahead in the AI era, follow Silicon Valley Girl Podcast on your favorite platform. New episode every week on AI, careers, and how to not get left.

• 19:56Speaker 06

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