AI RESEARCH
Photons = Tokens: The Physics of AI and the Economics of Knowledge
arXiv CS.AI
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ArXi:2603.06630v1 Announce Type: cross Debates about artificial intelligence capabilities and risks are often conducted without quantitative grounding. This paper applies the methodology of MacKay -- who reframed energy policy as arithmetic -- to the economy of AI computation. We define the token, the elementary unit of large language model input and output, as a physical quantity with measurable thermodynamic cost. Using Landauer's principle, Shannon's channel capacity, and current infrastructure data, we construct a supply-and-demand balance sheet for global token production.