[justinpombrio]

> I could also say “a Cheetah is like a lion but it’s smaller and has spots and runs a lot faster. And a leopard is like a lion but smaller and can climb trees and has spots.”

The OpenAI website is unresponsive at the moment, so I can't actually demonstrate this, but you could totally tell GPT-3 that, and it would then make basic inferences. For example, saying "four" when asked how many legs a cheetah has, or guessing a smaller weight for a cheetah than a lion when asked to guess a specific weight for both. Not perfectly, but a lot better than chance, for the basic inferences.

(You wouldn't actually tell it "a Cheetah is like a lion but..." because it already knows what a Cheetah is. Instead you'd say "a Whargib is like a lion but ...", and ask it basic questions about Whargibs.)