A Unified Framework for Integrating Semantic Communication and AI-Generated Content in Metaverse

As the Metaverse continues to grow, the need for efficient communication and intelligent content generation becomes increasingly important. Semantic communication focuses on conveying meaning and understanding from user inputs, while AI-Generated Content utilizes artificial intelligence to create digital content and experiences. Integrated Semantic Communication and AI-Generated Content (ISGC) has attracted a lot of attentions recently, which transfers semantic information from user inputs, generates digital content, and renders graphics for Metaverse. In this paper, we introduce a unified framework that captures ISGC two primary benefits, including integration gain for optimized resource allocation and coordination gain for goal-oriented high-quality content generation to improve immersion from both communication and content perspectives. We also classify existing ISGC solutions, analyze the major components of ISGC, and present several use cases. We then construct a case study based on the diffusion model to identify an optimal resource allocation strategy for performing semantic extraction, content generation, and graphic rendering in the Metaverse. Finally, we discuss several open research issues, encouraging further exploring the potential of ISGC and its related applications in the Metaverse.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Curated Innovation

The regulation of innovation-intensive industries is a critical issue for both innovation policy and regulation. In this Article, I propose a new framework to the way innovation-intensive industries are regulated. My proposal is a four-pronged model, which I term “Curated Innovation.” In the first stage, policymakers would set a standard that would represent the outcome the regulation seeks to achieve. Second, policymakers would launch a competition, where innovative technologies or methods would race to meet the standard that was defined. Third, policymakers would select the methods or technologies that come closest to meeting the standard and create an incentive in the marketplace to adopt them. Such incentives can come in various forms, such as prizes, expedited patent paths, or safe harbors from liability. Finally, policymakers would reconvene periodically to update the standard and examine the performance of new technologies or methods. Adoption of the Curated Innovation model would yield four key advantages. First, this model would improve the effectiveness of regulation because it would induce market-players to aim at the standard policymakers would set. Second, this model would spur innovation in the market by forming a path to the diffusion of the innovative solutions into the market. Hence, this model would ensure that innovation that has social value is not only produced but also adopted in the marketplace. Finally, this model would lead to evolvement of legal standards: it provides a dynamic process where the regulatory standard is constantly examined and updated to meet societal goals at an increasing rate of efficiency

Exploring the implications of blockchain technology for brand-consumer relationships: a future research agenda

Purpose This conceptual paper delves into the implications of blockchain technology adoption for brands and consumers. Drawing on existing branding literature and real-life applications of blockchain, the challenges, risks and opportunities from blockchain adoption for four important areas of the branding literature are canvassed (i.e., brand positioning and corporate brand image, consumer-brand relationships, online brand communication and consumers’ trust in the brand). Also, a future-oriented discussion is provided that highlights some important avenues for researchers in the field. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual discussion sheds light on the potential implications of blockchain technology for brand-consumer relationships. To do so, an analytical review of the blockchain literature is conducted, the nature of blockchain technology is presented and its unique features and functions for brand-consumer interactions are discussed. Findings This work ignites an exploratory discussion around how blockchain applications and platforms can affect consumer-brand relationships, drawing on a number of real-life examples of blockchain adoption. This discussion sheds light on how blockchain features can impact on various areas of interest for strategic brand management, such as the adoption of digital currencies, brand storytelling, the use of blockchain-enabled loyalty programmes, the role of intermediaries in online advertising, counterfeit consumption, brand transparency and trust for brands in online marketplaces, among others. Originality/value This is one of the first conceptual efforts in the branding literature that draws on the scarce existing knowledge around blockchain adoption and discusses the potential implications of blockchain technology for brands and consumers while also providing directions for future research

Can lab experiments help design personnel policies?

International audienceCan a company attract a different type of employee by changing its compensation scheme? Is it sufficient to pay more to increase employees’ motivation? Should a firm provide evaluation feedback to employees based on their absolute or their relative performance? Laboratory experiments can help address these questions by identifying the causal impact of variations in personnel policy on employees’ productivity and mobility. Although they arecollected in an artificial environment, the qualitative external validity of findings from the lab is now well recognized

Health Care Costs and the Arc of Innovation

Health care costs continue their inexorable rise, threatening America’s long-term fiscal stability, competitiveness, and standard of living. Over the past half-century, efforts to rein in spending have uniformly failed. In this Article, we explain why, breaking with standard accounts of regulatory and market dysfunction. We point instead to the nexus of economics, mutual empathy, and social expectations that drives medical innovation and locks in low-value technologies. We show how law reflects and reinforces this nexus and how and why health-policy-makers avert their gaze. Next, we propose to circumvent these barriers instead of surmounting them. Rather than targeting today’s excessive spending, we seek to leverage available legal tools to bend the arc of innovation, away from marginally-beneficial technology and toward high-value advances. To this end, we set forth a novel, value-based approach to pricing and patent protection—one that departs sharply from current practice by rewarding innovators in proportion to the therapeutic benefits new tests and treatments yield. Using cancer therapy as an example, we explain how emerging information technology and large troves of electronic clinical data are opening the way to near-real-time assessment of efficacy. We then show how such assessment can power ongoing adjustment of pricing and patent terms. Finally, we offer a blueprint for how laws governing health care payment and intellectual property can be tailored to realize this value-focused vision. For the reasons we lay out, the transformation of incentives we urge will both slow clinical spending growth and greatly enhance the social value that this spending yields

A Premier Paradigm Shift: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on U.S. Intellectual Property Laws

Intellectual Property (IP) rights in the United States are constitutionally prescribed for the express purpose of encouraging human innovation. The patent and copyright systems fulfill this purpose by incentivizing authors and inventors to disclose their efforts to the public, which disseminates the knowledge to the public and thereby works to maximize the creative potential of humanity. In turn, human creativity has sparked successive eras of technological and industrial revolution, altering every aspect of human experience and redefining our everyday experiences and our vision of the future. However, the old guard of established industry—whose market is most susceptible to displacement by revolutionary technology—utilize the IP systems to police the innovative efforts of others and consequently stem the tides of progress. Seeds of discontent have sprouted among a public who increasingly regard IP with ambivalence, and the march of progress is certain to stumble if these seeds are left unchecked. The digital age in particular revealed a deficiency of the current IP system, as the increasingly efficient exchange of information was countered by using IP as a regulatory system, rather than an incentive. This has revealed how the rights granted by successive amendments to the copyright system may be exploited by a select few while burdening society far longer than objectively justifiable. Moreover, the sum of human knowledge follows a course of exponential acceleration, far faster than our existing laws and intellectual property systems are prepared to accommodate. Proactive policies are necessary to mitigate the legal implications of new industries, and existing systems of all types must be prepared to change alongside the society in which they operate. However, recent government inquiries and international discussions reveal a misguided belief that our current system can adapt to this revolution, despite decades of litigation that suggest the opposite conclusion. The resulting legal uncertainty among inventors counteracts IP’s express purpose of “promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” and failure to rectify the situation renders the current system both unconstitutional and harmful to society. Modern technological advancements in data-intensive fields such as machine learning and artificial intelligence show both great potential for societal benefit and immense conflict with the current IP system. These technologies challenge our conceptions about innovation and creativity and foreshadow a future where the current IP system is not only undesirable, but also unenforceable. Regardless of whether the products of these technologies would fit within the current system, their very existence provides an ultimatum for policymakers—the time for change is upon us. While IP rights do not have to be entirely sacrificed to accommodate this new paradigm, they must be lessened. Their existence is only constitutionally justified to the extent that their benefit to society is proportional to the burden imposed. Furthermore, the relationship between creators and the public is certain to shift significantly over the coming decades, and our policies must be prepared to adapt to the demands of the coming age. The United States should not continue to warp IP into a regulatory web that counteracts its constitutional purpose of encouraging human innovation