We're living in a token economy. Each piece of content -- words, images, sounds, etc. -- is treated by an AI model as an atomic unit of work called a token. When you type into a prompt in ChatGPT, and you receive a paragraph in response, or you call an API to do the same thing inside an app you've built, both the input and the output data are counted as tokens. As a result, the meter is always running when you use AI, racking up costs per token, and the total bill is set to go higher in aggregate.
"There’s ones you can lease, there’s open source ones. Don’t do it." Taylor emphasized the impracticality of developing new AI models unless one belongs to a major player in the industry.