Transfer Learning

Learn when to use transfer learning vs. training from scratch by aligning your approach with the task’s data size, domain similarity, compute budget, and performance needs.

In modern artificial intelligence interviews—especially those focused on deep learning and generative AI—employers love to probe what methods you know and when and why you would choose one. A favorite among such questions is choosing between transfer learning and training from scratch. This reveals your practical understanding of machine learning strategy. “Should we fine-tune an existing model or build a new one from zero?” is a common dilemma in real projects, especially in GenAI-related roles. By asking “When would you prefer transfer learning over training from scratch, and vice versa?” they want to see if you grasp the concepts and the trade-offs properly and won’t naively train everything from scratch when a smarter approach exists.

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