In June, OpenAI unveiled the largest language model in the world, a text-generating tool called GPT-3 that can write creative fiction, translate legalese into plain English, and answer obscure trivia questions. It’s the latest feat of intelligence achieved by deep learning, a machine learning method patterned after the way neurons in the brain process and store information. But it came at a hefty price: at least $4.6 million and 355 years in computing time, assuming the model was trained on a standard neural network chip, or GPU. The model’s colossal size — 1,000 times larger than a typical language…
