Transfer learning plays a critical role in enabling models to perform well in few-shot and zero-shot learning scenarios by leveraging knowledge acquired from prior tasks. In few-shot learning, models must adapt to new tasks with only a handful of examples, while zero-shot learning requires solving tasks without any task-specific training data. Transfer learning addresses these challenges by initializing models with pre-trained parameters from large, general-purpose datasets, allowing them to generalize better with limited or no new data. This approach reduces the need for extensive retraining and data collection, making it practical for real-world applications where labeled data is scarce.
In few-shot learning, transfer learning works by fine-tuning a pre-trained model on a small dataset specific to the target task. For example, a vision model pre-trained on ImageNet can recognize new object categories with just a few labeled images because it already understands basic features like edges, textures, and shapes. The model only needs minor adjustments to align its existing knowledge with the new task. Similarly, in natural language processing (NLP), models like BERT can be adapted to classify specialized text (e.g., medical documents) using a small labeled dataset by updating a subset of layers. This efficiency stems from the model retaining broad linguistic patterns from pre-training, which reduces overfitting to the limited new data.
For zero-shot learning, transfer learning enables generalization by linking pre-trained knowledge to unseen tasks through auxiliary information. For instance, CLIP (Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training) connects images and text during pre-training, allowing it to classify images into novel categories using textual descriptions without additional training. In NLP, models like GPT-3 generate responses for tasks they weren’t explicitly trained on by leveraging patterns learned from diverse text corpora. These models rely on shared representations (e.g., word embeddings or semantic relationships) to infer solutions. Transfer learning bridges the gap between pre-training objectives and new tasks, making zero-shot inference possible without direct examples. This approach is especially valuable when deploying models in dynamic environments where tasks evolve rapidly.