Token problems: the workbook
Agentic AI by hand ✍️
I designed this workbook to get your hands busy with AI agents. This is the first in a series I plan to develop and share with you over the summer.
This is not the first time I have tried to make you pick up a pen and write on paper by hand. ✍️ In my previous Agentic AI online seminars, I asked you to sketch diagrams, draw lines, and many of you did.
This time I want to bring it up a notch: can I get you to do some math? Don't worry, simple math: adding numbers, multiplying them, working things in reverse. The goal is to build real intuition about how agents work by solving problems by hand, rather than passively reading and watching or mindlessly vide-coding. 😂
This first workbook is about tokens. The next one will cover the context window.
Now let's see if you can solve all 20 problems.
Token problems Series:
1. Count the Tokens
2. Subword Splitting
3. Punctuation Counts
4. Tokens per Word
5. Will It Fit?
6. The Price of a Call
7. Two Kinds of Token
8. Input or Output?
9. The Two-Part Bill
10. End-to-End Call Cost
11. Comparing Three Calls
12. The Average Call
13. The System Prompt
14. The System Prompt Tax
15. Calls in a Budget
16. Tokens on a Budget
17. How Long Will It Take?
18. The Split Matters
19. Pricing per Million Tokens
20. Tokens from the Bill
