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The passage around this formula

Given that, the more defensible comparison between two agents is not a rank at all. It is a dominance relation. Say agent A Pareto-dominates agent B if A is at least as good on every axis and strictly better on at least one: $A \succ B \iff s_A \ge s_B,\ \ c_A \le c_B,\ \ l_A \le l_B,\ \ \text{with at least one inequality strict.}$. The Pareto frontier across a set of candidate agents is the subset that no other candidate dominates — the agents for which improving on any one axis would require giving something up on another. This relation makes no assumption about how much a point of accuracy is worth in dollars or seconds. It only says when one agent is unambiguously not worse than another. That is a weaker claim than a rank, and it is weaker on purpose: it is the claim the…

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