# Token Efficiency and Cost Efficiency Are Different Metrics by Alexander Wissner-Gross > Token efficiency and cost efficiency are different metrics. A model can emit fewer visible tokens while performing more internal computation for each one, so fewer tokens do not necessarily mean a cheaper or more efficient system. > **— Adapted from Alexander Wissner-Gross**, *Moonshots, October 7, 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Recording and precise locator:** [1:44:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRdb8UmPnh0&t=6271s) — *The Fight Over Claude's Consciousness, AI's 1942 Moment, & Why Altman Says "Accept Some Bad Things"*, Moonshots, October 7, 2026. - **Exact reconciled source excerpt:** “I’d really rather see cost efficiency rather than token efficiency, since one of the ways that one can achieve token efficiency is through very deep transformers, looping transformers included, that do a lot more thinking per token. So token efficiency is not necessarily the best metric here.” - **Editorial status:** The poster is explicitly labeled **Adapted from** because it consolidates spoken context into a self-contained proposition. It must not be represented as verbatim speech. Numerical claims, forecasts, legal interpretations, and claims about current organizations remain the speaker’s assertions unless separately verified. - **Reconciled source dossier:** [[research/All Things Superintelligence Research - The Coming Manhattan Project - Moonshots|All Things Superintelligence Research — The Coming Manhattan Project — Moonshots]] preserves broadcast order, speaker attribution, timing, and the source-fidelity boundary. - **Preparation ledger:** [[research/All Things Superintelligence Research - The Coming Manhattan Project - Moonshots - Reminder and Wiki Preparation|Reminder and Wiki Preparation]] records candidate 35, its mechanism, evidence posture, and misreading risks. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Wiki source hub:** [[wiki/Moonshots - The Coming Manhattan Project|Moonshots — The Coming Manhattan Project]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Alexander Wissner-Gross|Alexander Wissner-Gross]] - [[wiki/Token Efficiency|Token Efficiency]] - [[wiki/Compute Scarcity|Compute Scarcity]] - [[wiki/Memory Architecture|Memory Architecture]] ## Share on Social Media ``` Token efficiency and cost efficiency are different metrics. A model can emit fewer visible tokens while performing more internal computation for each one, so fewer tokens do not necessarily mean a cheaper or more efficient system. — Adapted from Alexander Wissner-Gross, Moonshots, October 7, 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-alexander-wissner-gross-token-efficiency-and-cost-efficiency-are-different-metrics ```