Sam Altman calls tokens a "fake unit"
In a Cheeky Pint video, Sam Altman called tokens "a kind of fake unit": the number of tokens can be counted, but it cannot tell enterprises what this money bought. The author adds that the only defense of tokens comes from an information-theoretic perspective—model outputs are still mixed with noise; if the waste is removed, the token count would approach the Shannon limit, that is, the minimum amount needed to carry the actual information.
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Sam Altman calls tokens “a kind of fake unit”: you can count them, but a token count does not tell a business what it got for the money.
The one defense of tokens is information-theoretic: models still stream noise along with signal, and once that waste is removed, token counts approach Shannon’s floor, the minimum needed to carry the actual information.
---- Full video on "Cheeky Pint" YouTube channel, (link in comment)