> - The 175B parameter model is so large that it doesn't play nice with GitHub or something along those lines
There is no frickin' way that the difficulty or cost of distributing the model is a factor, even if it was several dozen terabytes in size (and it is probably somewhere around 1.5 terabytes). Not for Meta, and not when CDNs and torrrents are available as options.
If they are gatekeeping access to the model, there is no need to ascribe it to a side effect of something else. Their intent IS to limit access to the full model. I'm not really sure why they are bothering, unless they're assuming that unsavory actors won't be motivated enough to pay some grad student for a copy.
I suppose they may be adding a fingerprint or watermark of some sort to trace illicit copies back to the source if they're serious about limiting redistribution, but those can usually be found and removed if you have copies from two or more different sources.
"It wants to be free" is a ridiculous statement, considering that after full two years (GPT-3 was published in May 2020), there is no public release of anything comparable.
In May 2020, was your estimate of time to public release of anything comparable shorter or longer than two years? I bet it was shorter.
- They are concerned about the usage of the largest model, so want to vet people
- The 175B parameter model is so large that it doesn't play nice with GitHub or something along those lines