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  3. /Zero-Shot Learning
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Zero-Shot Learning

A model's ability to perform a task it was never explicitly trained on, with no examples provided.

Definition

A model's ability to perform a task it was never explicitly trained on, with no examples provided. Just describe the task and the model handles it. Large language models are remarkable zero-shot learners — ask Claude to translate to Finnish without showing Finnish examples and it just works.

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Related Terms

Few-Shot Learning

The ability of a model to learn a new task from just a handful of examples, often provided in the prompt itself.

In-Context Learning

A model's ability to learn new tasks simply from examples provided in the prompt, without any weight updates.

Generative AI

AI systems that create new content — text, images, audio, video, or code — rather than just analyzing or classifying existing data.

Activation Function

A mathematical function applied to a neuron's output that introduces non-linearity into the network.

Adam Optimizer

An optimization algorithm that combines the best parts of two other methods — AdaGrad and RMSProp.

AGI

Artificial General Intelligence.

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