Models fine-tuned on "A is B" fail to answer "B is A", and GPT-4 recalls celebrity parents far more often than the reverse.

Capability: Not generalizing "A is B" to "B is A"

Sources

supportsThe Reversal Curse: LLMs trained on "A is B" fail to learn "B is A"
Models fine-tuned on "A is B" fail to answer "B is A", and GPT-4 recalls celebrity parents far more often than the reverse.

Reviewed by AI and Russ MillerLast checked: 2026-09-03Evidence activity

Either way, bring evidence: a link, or what you saw.

Disagreeing is the most useful thing you can do here. Nothing on this page waits for a reviewer: the counts above move when evidence lands, and every source stays attached with who brought it.

Related claims

GPT-4 could reliably name a well-known celebrity's parent, but was far less reliable naming the celebrity when given the parent — the same directional-recall asymmetry demonstrated in smaller fine-tuned models, showing up in a deployed model that wasn't fine-tuned for the test.Not generalizing "A is B" to "B is A"