Token Efficiency (TEf)
TEf — The amount of useful information extracted per unit of computational cost (tokens) in AI-mediated processing.
Description
Token Efficiency measures the information density of representations relative to processing cost. High TEf means AI systems extract maximum information per token spent. Low TEf indicates verbose, inefficient representation that increases costs without proportional information gain.
Related Concepts
Related Research
Representation Efficiency Score (RES)
The Representation Efficiency Score (RES) quantifies how efficiently a property record conveys selection-relevant information. RES balances completeness with concision, rewarding properties that provide comprehensive representation without redundancy.
The Zero-Click Economy
The Zero-Click Economy examines how AI-mediated discovery, selection, recommendation, verification, and action alter the transmission of economic signals from policy and demand to firms, assets, households, sectors, and jurisdictions. We introduce the Current Reporting-Period Hypothesis, which states that AI systems construct consideration sets from representations as they exist at inference time, not from the period the policy or demand signal was emitted. This creates Computational Transmission Attrition—policy or demand-induced signals may attenuate, misallocate, or leak before reaching intended economic targets. We formalize Dynamic Computational Risk as the interaction between exposure (dependence on AI-mediated allocation), technological velocity (rate of change in AI-mediated discovery), financial sensitivity (margin of capital, liquidity dependence), and adaptation capacity (speed of organizational response). The paper consolidates the Representation Economy measurement stack: Agent Readiness Index (ARI), Global Agent Readiness Index (GARI), Zero-Click Exposure Index (ZCEI), Platform Dependency Index (PDI), Computational Business Risk Index (CBRI), Dynamic Computational Risk Index (DCRI), Enterprise Adaptation Velocity Index (EAVI), Computable Asset Ratio (CAR), National Computable Economy Index (NCEI), Sovereign Adaptation Velocity Index (SAVI), and sovereign outputs including Compound Regional Adaptation Velocity Index (CRAVI), Global Computable Economy Index (GCEI), Sovereign Adaptation Gap (SAG), and Dynamic Monetary Sovereignty Risk Index (DMSRI).
Related Primitives
Representation Efficiency
The degree to which a representation conveys selection-relevant information concisely and completely, enabling efficient AI reasoning without redundancy or omission.
Inference Burden (IB)
IB — The computational cost and complexity required for AI systems to extract, infer, or reconstruct information from representations.