I think the fact that GPT-3 is controlled by OpenAI and AlphaCode is a DeepMind project has more to do with it. Of course you don’t need to hotstart by transfer learning, but it’s a good idea anyway if you can, which is why DM not using its own GPT-3-equivalent (Gopher, trained at considerable expense) has drawn comment.
I think the fact that GPT-3 is controlled by OpenAI and AlphaCode is a DeepMind project has more to do with it. Of course you don’t need to hotstart by transfer learning, but it’s a good idea anyway if you can, which is why DM not using its own GPT-3-equivalent (Gopher, trained at considerable expense) has drawn comment.