Equation 20 · Part 2 · Comparing Frontier Model Pricing Without Comparing Apples to Oranges
subscript
subscript
What this part means
The lower label selects a particular version, component, or indexed member of the quantity. For example, x₀ and xₜ can be values at different positions.
Its job in the formula
A subscript distinguishes a version, component, step, or member of a quantity. It does not automatically mean multiplication.
Full expression→subscript→Article meaning
The passage around this formula
Even a comparison that correctly measures is not yet a capability comparison, which is the deeper reason a “cheapest model” headline usually asks the wrong question. Artificial Analysis, an independent benchmarking organisation, maintains a live Intelligence Index alongside pricing across several hundred models from every major vendor, and explicitly plots “Intelligence Index vs. Cost per Task” as a quadrant chart rather than a single ranked list, with a stated methodology that derives “weighted average cost per Intelligence Index task” from “input, cache hit, cache write, reasoning, and answer token prices, divided by task count, and weighted by its Intelligence Index weight” [ 8 ] —…
Learn the underlying idea
A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.
Open the illustrated subscripts: which member of a family? guide →
Sources cited in the surrounding passage
- [8] Comparison of AI Models across Intelligence, Performance, and Price ↗
- [7] LLM Inference Price Trends ↗
These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.