Boris Cherny warns rising token costs complicate AI coding experiments
Boris Cherny, who built Anthropic's Claude Code, shared that using AI for coding is getting tricky as token costs keep climbing.
At a Scale AI event, he responded to Uber chief operating officer Andrew Macdonald's concerns about whether investing in AI is really worth it.
Still, Cherny encouraged companies not to shy away from trying new things and experimenting with fresh ideas.
Loop engineering can spike token costs
Cherny introduced "loop engineering," where AI agents write and tweak their own prompts to finish tasks solo.
While this sounds cool, he warned that running lots of agents can quickly drive up token costs, a challenge even Anthropic faces.
He summed it up by saying that companies need to make sure they're not just throwing money at the wall and seeing what sticks, reminding everyone that managing resources wisely matters just as much as chasing innovation.