GPT-3 is estimated to have cost $4.6 million and yes, gathering and cleaning data can be expensive it's still no where close to $1.5 billion. I'm well aware of some of the kinds of projects that are done with that kind of money. This doesn't seem in their league.
I genuinely wonder what this means for the future of DeepMind. Is it supposed to be profitable or is it just R&D spending for Google? Where are the paths to profitability for them? Are they counting on more expensive GPT-4,5,6 APIs?
My impression is that places like DeepMind are more of a social good than a profit seeker. Most universities simply cannot afford such big and expensive AI. So I suspect that DeepMind is Google’s way of expanding the frontier of AI knowledge through charitable donations. It’s ultimately good PR for them and maybe influences businesses to pick Google Cloud Services for brand appeal. Also I’m guessing since it’s research, they get a huge tax write-off.
Perhaps they will deliver once-in-decade unicorn breakthroughs that can ultimately be monetized? Maybe Google’s next phase will be AI generated content. With that they can completely cut out other content creators, and thereby collect affiliate cash through sales. For example, generating those “Top 10 Holiday Toys” guides automatically.
