Sam Altman 称 token 是“伪单位
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.
AI 导读
Sam Altman 在 Cheeky Pint 视频中称 token 是“一种伪单位”：token 数量可以统计，但无法告诉企业这笔钱换来了什么。作者补充，token 唯一的辩护来自信息论视角——模型输出仍夹杂噪声，若去除浪费，token 数会逼近香农下限，即承载实际信息所需的最小量。
正文
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)