If running ChatGPT costs $1B/y and they make $3B/y on it, tacking on the cost of R&D on top doesn't seem very fair.
Afaik it includes inference which they seem to be offering at a loss.
why not? if their product is “SOTA LLM” then they can’t just lay off r&d and coast. Years from now nobody is going to be paying for “that authentic gpt4 sound”. LLMs aren’t guitars.