Deep Generative Modeling Reshapes Compression and Transmission: From Efficiency to Resiliency
This work addresses efficiency and resiliency in data communication for researchers in AI and information theory, but it is incremental as it builds on existing connections between generative modeling and coding techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of data compression and transmission by leveraging deep generative models, showing that these models can serve as strong compressors and estimators for error restoration, though no concrete numbers are provided.
Information theory and machine learning are inextricably linked and have even been referred to as "two sides of the same coin". One particularly elegant connection is the essential equivalence between probabilistic generative modeling and data compression or transmission. In this article, we reveal the dual-functionality of deep generative models that reshapes both data compression for efficiency and transmission error concealment for resiliency. We present how the contextual predictive capabilities of powerful generative models can be well positioned to be strong compressors and estimators. In this sense, we advocate for viewing the deep generative modeling problem through the lens of end-to-end communications, and evaluate the compression and error restoration capabilities of foundation generative models. We show that the kernel of many large generative models is powerful predictor that can capture complex relationships among semantic latent variables, and the communication viewpoints provide novel insights into semantic feature tokenization, contextual learning, and usage of deep generative models. In summary, our article highlights the essential connections of generative AI to source and channel coding techniques, and motivates researchers to make further explorations in this emerging topic.