# GenZSL: Generative Zero-Shot Learning Via Inductive Variational Autoencoder

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.11882 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.11882/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 40 of its 66 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 May 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (2017)
- [Learning to Prompt for Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.01134/) (2021)
- [Density estimation using Real NVP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.08803/) (2016)
- [Zero-Shot Learning -- A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.00600/) (2017)
- [Synthetic Data from Diffusion Models Improves ImageNet Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08466/) (2023)
- [Is synthetic data from generative models ready for image recognition?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07574/) (2022)
- [Your Diffusion Model is Secretly a Zero-Shot Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16203/) (2023)
- [Self-regulating Prompts: Foundational Model Adaptation without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.06948/) (2023)
- [Feature Generating Networks for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.00981/) (2017)
- [Generalized Zero- and Few-Shot Learning via Aligned Variational Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01784/) (2018)
- [f-VAEGAN-D2: A Feature Generating Framework for Any-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.10132/) (2019)
- [Attribute Prototype Network for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.08290/) (2020)
- [Latent Embeddings for Zero-shot Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.08895/) (2016)
- [Generalized Zero-Shot Learning via Synthesized Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.03878/) (2017)
- [Generative Models as a Data Source for Multiview Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05258/) (2021)
- [Counterfactual Zero-Shot and Open-Set Visual Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00887/) (2021)
- [Leveraging the Invariant Side of Generative Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.04092/) (2019)
- [Goal-Oriented Gaze Estimation for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03433/) (2021)
- [FREE: Feature Refinement for Generalized Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.13807/) (2021)
- [Expanding Small-Scale Datasets with Guided Imagination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13976/) (2022)
- [Semantic-Guided Multi-Attention Localization for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.00502/) (2019)
- [TransZero: Attribute-guided Transformer for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.01683/) (2021)
- [I2MVFormer: Large Language Model Generated Multi-View Document Supervision for Zero-Shot Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.02291/) (2022)
- [Improving Zero-Shot Generalization for CLIP with Synthesized Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.07397/) (2023)
- [Invertible Zero-Shot Recognition Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.04873/) (2020)
- [MSDN: Mutually Semantic Distillation Network for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.03137/) (2022)
- [Dataset Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10524/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Interpretable Zero-Shot Learning with Locally-Aligned Vision-Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23822/) (2025)
- [IMAGINE: Adaptive Schema-Imagery Enhanced Composition for Composed Video Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.08144/) (2026)
- [Learning Adaptive and Visually Aligned Conditions for Generative Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.06281/) (2026)
- [Incentivizing Generative Zero-Shot Learning via Outcome-Reward Reinforcement Learning with Visual Cues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21138/) (2026)
- [Visual Anchoring in Diffusion: Multimodal Zero-Shot Skeleton Action Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.04623/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Remarkable progress in zero-shot learning (ZSL) has been achieved using generative models. However, existing generative ZSL methods merely generate (imagine) the visual features from scratch guided by the strong class semantic vectors annotated by experts, resulting in suboptimal generative performance and limited scene generalization. To address these and advance ZSL, we propose an inductive variational autoencoder for generative zero-shot learning, dubbed GenZSL. Mimicking human-level concept learning, GenZSL operates by inducting new class samples from similar seen classes using weak class semantic vectors derived from target class names (i.e., CLIP text embedding). To ensure the generation of informative samples for training an effective ZSL classifier, our GenZSL incorporates two key strategies. Firstly, it employs class diversity promotion to enhance the diversity of class semantic vectors. Secondly, it utilizes target class-guided information boosting criteria to optimize the model. Extensive experiments conducted on three popular benchmark datasets showcase the superiority and potential of our GenZSL with significant efficacy and efficiency over f-VAEGAN, e.g., 24.7% performance gains and more than 60× faster training speed on AWA2. Codes are available at https://github.com/shiming-chen/GenZSL.