A Contemporary Survey on Semantic Communications:Theory of Mind, Generative AI, and Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding
Loc X. Nguyen, Avi Deb Raha, Pyae Sone Aung, Dusit Niyato, Zhu Han, Choong Seon Hong

TL;DR
This survey reviews recent advances in semantic communication, focusing on Theory of Mind, Generative AI, and Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding, highlighting their roles in reducing communication overhead and enabling intelligent information exchange.
Contribution
It provides an in-depth overview of three key semantic communication directions, analyzing their development, challenges, and future research opportunities.
Findings
Theory of Mind enables intelligent interaction and shared understanding.
Generative AI allows flexible semantic encoding beyond traditional methods.
Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding improves efficiency of semantic information transfer.
Abstract
Semantic communication is emerging as the next pillar in wireless communication technology due to its transformative capabilities in reducing communication overhead, enhancing robustness, and enabling intelligent information exchange. The most significant obstacle lies in the lack of standardization across various research directions, leading to inconsistencies in interpretation, objectives, and evaluation. In this survey, we provide an in-depth overview of three leading directions in semantic communication, namely Theory of Mind-based semantic communication, Generative AI-driven semantic communication, and Deep Joint Source-Channel Coding (DJSCC)-based semantic communication. These directions have been extensively studied and developed by research institutes worldwide, and their effectiveness continues to improve alongside advances in communication and computing technologies. The…
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