The Elastic Bench: Solving Scalability Whiplash in AI Development In the world of 2026 AI research, the only constant is volatility. An AI Lab may spend months in a "quiet" architectural phase with a lean team, only to enter a high-intensity Reinforcement Learning f... AI development cost optimization AI talent on-demand RLHF scaling Scaling AI workforce elastic bench for AI flexible AI staffing managing AI research bursts on-demand AI experts technical talent elasticity variable cost AI modeling Jan. 2, 2026