Who has the political authority and/or social power to "do math"?
The issue with "doing math" is the incentive infrastructure. Modern mathematics research has always been tied with leveraging increasingly potent and numerous computing resources. With LLMs the experts are doing what they do best -- utilizing the latest and greatest. OpenAI leveraged an internal model and investment capital most people couldn't hope to touch. That is a display of strength and privilege.
It's motivated by cold hard cash instead of being driven by it. OpenAI wants more investors, more fuel for the fire, and this is how the company has decided to get it done. Token costs have increased, but so has general usage in the population. This is a PR campaign.
The issue with "doing math" is the incentive infrastructure. Modern mathematics research has always been tied with leveraging increasingly potent and numerous computing resources. With LLMs the experts are doing what they do best -- utilizing the latest and greatest. OpenAI leveraged an internal model and investment capital most people couldn't hope to touch. That is a display of strength and privilege.
It's motivated by cold hard cash instead of being driven by it. OpenAI wants more investors, more fuel for the fire, and this is how the company has decided to get it done. Token costs have increased, but so has general usage in the population. This is a PR campaign.