Sometimes for a new class there are no training samples yet. This makes the standard supervised learning procedure impossible. To correctly classify a new class, prior knowledge about that class is required.

We leverage ChatGPT’s descriptions of classes. Via language models we reconstruct the new class via sparse linear estimation.

Very effective: on CUB with 200 bird classes, it achieves an accuracy of 62%.
It also provides a kickstart for further learning when few images of the class become available.