# A Survey on Generative Modeling with Limited Data, Few Shots, and Zero Shot

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.14397 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.14397/

## Key facts

- Cited by 19 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 163 of its 227 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Jul 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 163)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Distilling the Knowledge in a Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02531/) (2015)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Momentum Contrast for Unsupervised Visual Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05722/) (2019)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Towards Deep Learning Models Resistant to Adversarial Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.06083/) (2017)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [BLIP-2: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training with Frozen Image Encoders and Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12597/) (2023)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Rethinking the Inception Architecture for Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.00567/) (2015)
- [Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Fast Adaptation of Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03400/) (2017)
- [Squeeze-and-Excitation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.01507/) (2017)
- [Neural Discrete Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00937/) (2017)
- [Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12092/) (2021)
- [On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07258/) (2021)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [A ConvNet for the 2020s](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03545/) (2022)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09841/) (2020)
- [Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00364/) (2022)
- [Prototypical Networks for Few-shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.05175/) (2017)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)

## Built on by (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [AI-Generated Content (AIGC) for Various Data Modalities: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14177/) (2023)
- [Frequency Masking for Universal Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06506/) (2024)
- [Label-Only Model Inversion Attacks via Knowledge Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19342/) (2023)
- [Generative Models in Decision Making: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17100/) (2025)
- [Model Inversion Robustness: Can Transfer Learning Help?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.05588/) (2024)
- [Generative Artificial Intelligence Meets Synthetic Aperture Radar: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.05027/) (2024)
- [On Measuring Fairness in Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19297/) (2023)
- [Few-Shot Image Generation by Conditional Relaxing Diffusion Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07249/) (2024)
- [FairQueue: Rethinking Prompt Learning for Fair Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18615/) (2024)
- [Seizing the Means of Production: Exploring the Landscape of Crafting, Adapting and Navigating Generative AI Models in the Visual Arts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17688/) (2024)
- [A Diffusive Data Augmentation Framework for Reconstruction of Complex Network Evolutionary History](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.06485/) (2025)
- [DomainGallery: Few-shot Domain-driven Image Generation by Attribute-centric Finetuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04571/) (2024)
- [Rare event modeling with self-regularized normalizing flows: what can we learn from a single failure?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.21110/) (2025)
- [CodeFuse-CommitEval: Towards Benchmarking LLM's Power on Commit Message and Code Change Inconsistency Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19875/) (2025)
- [Conditional Diffusion on Web-Scale Image Pairs leads to Diverse Image Variations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14857/) (2024)
- [Grassmannian Geometry Meets Dynamic Mode Decomposition in DMD-GEN: A New Metric for Mode Collapse in Time Series Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11292/) (2024)
- [AIR: Zero-shot Generative Model Adaptation with Iterative Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.10895/) (2025)
- [Instruction Tuning of Large Language Models for Tabular Data Generation-in One Day](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.23220/) (2025)
- [Towards Sustainable Universal Deepfake Detection with Frequency-Domain Masking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08042/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Generative modeling in machine learning aims to synthesize new data samples that are statistically similar to those observed during training. While conventional generative models such as GANs and diffusion models typically assume access to large and diverse datasets, many real-world applications (e.g. in medicine, satellite imaging, and artistic domains) operate under limited data availability and strict constraints. In this survey, we examine Generative Modeling under Data Constraint (GM-DC), which includes limited-data, few-shot, and zero-shot settings. We present a unified perspective on the key challenges in GM-DC, including overfitting, frequency bias, and incompatible knowledge transfer, and discuss how these issues impact model performance. To systematically analyze this growing field, we introduce two novel taxonomies: one categorizing GM-DC tasks (e.g. unconditional vs. conditional generation, cross-domain adaptation, and subject-driven modeling), and another organizing methodological approaches (e.g. transfer learning, data augmentation, meta-learning, and frequency-aware modeling). Our study reviews over 230 papers, offering a comprehensive view across generative model types and constraint scenarios. We further analyze task-approach-method interactions using a Sankey diagram and highlight promising directions for future work, including adaptation of foundation models, holistic evaluation frameworks, and data-centric strategies for sample selection. This survey provides a timely and practical roadmap for researchers and practitioners aiming to advance generative modeling under limited data. Project website: https://sutd-visual-computing-group.github.io/gmdc-survey/.