How does Naïve Bayes handle zero-shot generalization in practice?

Updated May 17, 2026

Short answer

Naïve Bayes can generalize to unseen feature combinations using smoothing and probabilistic independence.

Deep explanation

Zero-shot generalization occurs when NB encounters unseen feature-class combinations. Laplace smoothing assigns non-zero probability to unseen events, allowing inference. However, true semantic zero-shot capability is limited compared to modern language models.

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