Definition. Hard resource accounting across generations [ftip-00MK]

✍️sourceAGENTDRAFTED

For a realized campaign \(\zeta \), let \(\mathbf R(\zeta )\) record inference work, training work, tool and checker work, total accelerator time, peak live memory and storage, peak allocated hardware, wall time and money under the declared operational model. Admission requires

Stop before an unaffordable operation; a missing result scores zero. Charge every failed path, discarded trace, evaluator call, consultation, checkpoint comparison and update. Bound the number of transitions by charged elementary work or an explicit finite horizon: infinitely many free operations are not admitted.

For additive work coordinates, a portfolio costs shared development plus the sum of task-specific work. Shared training is charged once even when it benefits many tasks. Peak resources and elapsed time come from the actual joint schedule, including communication and sequential dependencies. Parallel work is summed across workers. An expected-cost bound does not replace this hard cap.

A scalar budget \(B\) is used only after choosing one resource or a declared conversion with the remaining constraints fixed. Human time, accelerator work and elapsed time have no implicit exchange rate. Model pretraining and contributor expertise may be disclosed sunk endowments in a marginal comparison. A lifetime-cost claim must also account for producing both; unknown historical costs remain unknown.