Compressed-Language Models for Understanding Compressed File Formats: a JPEG Exploration

Understand

This study investigates whether Compressed-Language Models (CLMs), i.e.

• language models operating on raw byte streams from Compressed File Formats~(CFFs), can understand files compressed by CFFs.
• We focus on the JPEG format as a representative CFF, given its commonality and its representativeness of key concepts in compression, such as entropy coding and run-length encoding.
• We test if CLMs understand the JPEG format by probing their capabilities to perform along three axes: recognition of inherent file properties, handling of files with anomalies, and generation of new files.