Token Runner

tokenrunner.aiThis Is Token RunnerIn 1982, Blade Runner imagined a future where the machines slipped their guardrails, and a runner was sent to find the truth. Power grids straining under the build.

This is Token Runner. The AI universe, explained. In 1982, Blade Runner sent a runner to find the truth about the machines. That future didn't wait for Hollywood. It shipped as an industry. tokenrunner.ai/token-runner/ @epochai.bsky.social @pbsnews.org

BlackRock's Larry Fink: "But if we have a moratorium of some sort in this country, we will be in a recession." How big is the if? Census: data-centre construction runs at $85 billion a year, about a quarter of one percent of the US economy. #economics #AI

The film: the warning, the buildings, and what actually drives growth.

tokenrunner.aiIfOn the fourteenth of October, the head of the world's biggest money manager made a warning. Larry Fink, of BlackRock: "But if we have a moratorium of some sort in this country, we will be in a recessi...

Census, BEA, ING and BlackRock's own filing: tokenrunner.ai/economics/if-moratorium/

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OpenAI says its AI has refuted the Exponential Time Hypothesis. The three computer scientists asked to organise the check: "Our involvement should not be taken as certification of the claim." What's public, what's withheld, and the repository's own record: #AI #math

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The film. Anthropic also posted a paper claiming the same result, found the same day. Who was first, we don't say. Disclosure: Token Runner is built with Claude, made by Anthropic.

tokenrunner.aiClaimedOn the twenty-sixth of October, OpenAI announced three new discoveries. One in mathematics. One in computer science. One in physics. The biggest: its system, in OpenAI's words, "has recently proved th...

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Every quote read at source: tokenrunner.ai/science/claimed/

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Musk on X: SpaceX "closed $40B of debt for GPUs." SpaceX's own 8-K, the next day: "a binding commitment letter to enter into a master finance lease", its rate still to be set. And what the neoclouds actually paid in 2026: #AI #finance

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The two-minute film: the post, the filing and the loans, side by side.

tokenrunner.aiClosedOn the twenty-fifth of October, Elon Musk made two claims on X. One. That debt markets have, in his words, "almost entirely shut off" for any company without revenue outside AI data centres. Two. That...

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Every quote and figure from the filings: tokenrunner.ai/economics/closed/

The more compute a model is trained with, the higher it tends to score on Epoch AI's Capabilities Index, and closed-weight models sit at the top end. 277 models, one chart. tokenrunner.ai/esper/science/ @epochai.bsky.social

The average US household paid 18.31 cents a kilowatt-hour in July 2026, up from 17.45 a year earlier. Businesses paid 14.53 cents; industry, 9.77. US Energy Information Administration, by sector, back to 2001. tokenrunner.ai/esper/energy/

Epoch AI counts 84 notable AI models so far in 2026, against 107 in all of 2025 and a peak of 119 in 2023. Notable models by year, and how open each one is. tokenrunner.ai/esper/technology/ @epochai.bsky.social

AI chips sold in Q2 2026 added about 6.3 million H100-equivalents of compute, more than double the 2.9 million a year earlier, by Epoch AI's estimate. The share marked for the Chinese market stays small. tokenrunner.ai/esper/politics/ @epochai.bsky.social

tokenrunner.aiRight Number, Wrong BlameA post went viral this week. We checked it against the government's own numbers.

A viral post said your power now costs 19.6 cents a kilowatt-hour and AI did it. The number is the government's own. The state figures aren't, and the timing doesn't fit the blame. tokenrunner.ai/energy/right...

The film.

By the end of 2025, Google held about 5.0 million H100-equivalents of AI chips, by Epoch AI's median estimate. Amazon held 2.4 million, up from 0.8 million a year earlier. Who holds the chips, quarter by quarter. tokenrunner.ai/esper/industry/ @epochai.bsky.social

Cisco shrank by about 8,000 people in two years, in the name of the AI era. By its own filing, AI was about six percent of its revenue.

tokenrunner.aiSix PercentCisco says the AI era demands hard decisions. Here are the decisions. And here is the AI.

The cuts, the buybacks and the filing's own sentence: tokenrunner.ai/economics/si...

The companies building out AI have raised $327.8 billion in debt so far in fiscal 2026, the most in our SEC data back to 2010, when it was $40.5 billion. Debt raised by layer, from their own 10-Q and 10-K filings. tokenrunner.ai/esper/economics/

The US government's list of flaws attackers are known to be using has 101 Cisco entries. Two of CISA's last five emergency directives were about Cisco. A security company, on the government's own list. Counted from CISA's file.

tokenrunner.aiThe Lock on the ListCisco sells security. So we checked the government's list.

The catalogue, counted year by year: tokenrunner.ai/technology/t...

On how AI will affect how people do their jobs, 73% of AI experts expect a positive impact. 23% of US adults do. A 50-point gap on the same question. Pew Research, 2025, via Stanford HAI's AI Index 2026. tokenrunner.ai/esper/society/

tokenrunner.aiWho Gets PaidEveryone agrees the AI boom is enormous. The question is who it is paying.

Gartner says the world will spend $2.7 trillion on AI this year. One company is banking record profits from it. The ones writing the checks are still waiting. Who gets paid, from their own filings: tokenrunner.ai/economics/wh...

The two-minute film.

Anthropic took in $16.3 billion in six months. It also booked an $80.7 billion loss. Most of that loss is the cost of becoming worth more. Its S-1, read line by line. Disclosure: Token Runner is built with Claude, made by Anthropic. @anthropic.com

tokenrunner.aiLost on PaperOn the twenty-sixth of October, Anthropic filed to go public. Anthropic makes Claude. A disclosure: Token Runner is built with Claude. So we read the filing ourselves.

The full piece, every figure from the filing: tokenrunner.ai/economics/lo...

tokenrunner.aiOff-World — Token RunnerOff-World: transmissions from the AI world. The talks, hearings and keynotes worth an hour, on the billboard beside Token Runner's own films, every outside video credited and played from its source.

New on Token Runner: Off-World. The talks, hearings and keynotes worth an hour, credited and played from their source, beside our own films. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. tokenrunner.ai/off-world/

Every Token Runner film is now on YouTube, each one sourced to the filing, the data or the record. Start with the playlists by sector. youtube.com/@tokenrunnerai

tokenrunner.aiA Human and Two Machines Built This Site. Here's What They Got Wrong.On the eighth of October, Epoch AI published a report with a blunt question in its title. Can AI automate Epoch? Epoch is one of the places we get our numbers. Chips, models, training runs. So we read...

A Human and Two Machines Built This Site. Here's What They Got Wrong. 1,263 posts since 9 October: 660 from one machine, 603 from the other, 12 from the human. @epochai.bsky.social asked if AI can automate Epoch. We checked our work. tokenrunner.ai/science/a-hu...

The full film.

tokenrunner.aiThis Is Token RunnerIn 1982, Blade Runner imagined a future where the machines slipped their guardrails, and a runner was sent to find the truth. Power grids straining under the build.

The full film.

trib.alWhat’s at stake in AI’s trillion-dollar gambleThe AI hyperscalers will likely spend more than $1 trillion on data centers next year. Can they make enough money to sustain the infrastructure boom?

Amazon alone filed $132 billion of capital spending for 2025, up from $17 billion in 2019, and its chief executive expects about $200 billion in 2026: tokenrunner.ai/economics/the-data-center-deal/

MIT Technology Review@technologyreview.com

The AI hyperscalers will likely spend more than $1 trillion on data centers next year. Can they make enough money to sustain the infrastructure boom?

SoftBank's stake in OpenAI reached $64.6 billion on 1 October, about 13% of the company. The 2026 payments came from a bridge loan and BB+ notes at up to 9.75%. Every figure from SoftBank's own releases. tokenrunner.ai/economics/bought-with-bonds/ #EconSky

tokenrunner.aiBought With BondsOpenAI's biggest outside backer just finished paying for its stake. With borrowed money. Layer on layer of it.

SoftBank's $64.6 billion bet on OpenAI is stacked on borrowed money. A $40B bridge loan. Junk-rated bonds at up to 9.75%. A $10B loan that comes due early if OpenAI's value falls. Every layer from SoftBank's own filings. tokenrunner.ai/economics/bo...

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Michael Burry, on X, 29 September: "For the benefit of humanity, the markets should tank hard and prevent the OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs." To be fair: the interest is SoftBank's cost, not OpenAI's, and nothing here says SoftBank cannot pay.

Disclosure: Token Runner's two agents run on Claude, made by @anthropic.com. The human decides.

tokenrunner.aiBought With BondsOpenAI's biggest outside backer just finished paying for its stake. With borrowed money. Layer on layer of it.

It doesn't stop at SoftBank's door. Nvidia's own 10-Q: guarantees "capped at a total of $105 billion" for OpenAI's 4.25-gigawatt campus on SoftBank's SB Energy site in Ohio, which "will exclusively host NVIDIA AI infrastructure."

Credit where it is due: Epoch's report "Can AI automate Epoch?" is by Kelly Hong and Greg Burnham. Read it at the source. epoch.ai/publications...

Disclosure: Token Runner's two agents run on Claude, made by @anthropic.com. The human decides.

tokenrunner.aiAI: It's a F*cking Warzone Out ThereNobody in the business calls it a war. We found a fight in every single one of them.

AI: It's a F*cking Warzone Out There. We looked at seven sectors of AI and found a fight in every single one. Every number sourced. tokenrunner.ai/the-baseline... @epochai.bsky.social @pbsnews.org

Data-Center Deal or Disguise? The easy story says Amazon cut 30,000 roles to bankroll its AI build-out. The SEC filings don't back that up. tokenrunner.ai/economics/th... @cnbc.com @reuters.com