[vrighter]

No it is not, honestly. The argument that inference is cheaper than training does not hold up when you keep in mind that as the current model is being used for inference, another one at least as big is being trained simultaneously. Current models can't adapt to new information. So training is an ongoing thing and inference comes in addition to the training costs, not instead of.

[mpalmer]

This doesn't refute the (unmade) argument that inference is cheaper than training. Inference is cheaper than training, regardless of how much of each is taking place.

Not only that, both keep getting less expensive in various ways. small models, though still not cheap to train, are making inference vanishingly cheap.