Lesson 1240 of 1596
AI tools: cost-control patterns for LLM features
Caching, smaller models for easy turns, hard caps per user, and a kill switch. Cost runaway is a product bug, not just an ops problem.
Creators · Tools Literacy · ~7 min read
The premise
LLM costs spiral when there are no per-user caps, no model tiering, and no caching. Each lever adds engineering work but turns cost from unbounded to predictable.
What AI does well here
- Return cached responses when given a cache hit
- Use a smaller model when explicitly routed
- Stop processing when a user hits a documented limit
What AI cannot do
- Decide on its own when to use a smaller model
- Cache its own responses without infrastructure
- Self-throttle abusive users
Key terms in this lesson
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