Beyond Transmitting Bits: Context, Semantics, and Task-Oriented Communications

TL;DR

This paper explores the evolution of communication systems from traditional bit transmission to semantic and task-oriented approaches, emphasizing the importance of context and learning for future communication design.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of semantic-aware and task-oriented communication frameworks, highlighting foundational theories, algorithms, and implementation strategies.

Findings

Information theory underpins semantic and task-aware communication models.

Learning plays a crucial role in developing semantics and task-specific communication methods.

The paper outlines potential future directions for context-aware communication systems.

Abstract

Communication systems to date primarily aim at reliably communicating bit sequences. Such an approach provides efficient engineering designs that are agnostic to the meanings of the messages or to the goal that the message exchange aims to achieve. Next generation systems, however, can be potentially enriched by folding message semantics and goals of communication into their design. Further, these systems can be made cognizant of the context in which communication exchange takes place, providing avenues for novel design insights. This tutorial summarizes the efforts to date, starting from its early adaptations, semantic-aware and task-oriented communications, covering the foundations, algorithms and potential implementations. The focus is on approaches that utilize information theory to provide the foundations, as well as the significant role of learning in semantics and task-aware communications.