OpenAI researchers now spend more on Codex than hiring a human researcher
willdepue · x · 2026-09-07
Kevin Liu's team at OpenAI released data on models accelerating internal research: many researchers now spend more on Codex than the cost of hiring a human — $7k/day in tokens ($2.5M annualized) vs. $1.5M median new-hire salary. Liu argues recursive self-improvement may be the biggest capability driver of the coming years, and calls on other AI labs to release comparable transparency data.
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