3 ms·

Why do you need an API key to tokenize the text? Isn't it supposed to be a cheap step that everything else in the model relies on?

simonw 6mo ago
I'd love it if that API (which I do not believe Anthropic charge anything for) worked without an API key.
kouteiheika 6mo ago
I'd guess it's because they don't want people to reverse engineer it. Note that they're the only provider which doesn't make their tokenizer available offline as a library (i.e. the only provider whose tokenizer is secret).
- stingraycharles 6mo ago
  Anthropic is somewhat becoming the Apple of AI in terms of closed ecosystem. Not saying I blame them, I just don't like it as a customer. The fact that it's impossible to get the actual thinking tokens anymore, but we have to do with a rewritten summary, is extremely off-putting. I understand that it's necessary for users, but when writing agentic applications yourself, it's super annoying not to have the actual reasoning of the agent to understand failure modes.
  - aftbit 6mo ago
    It's _not_ that it's necessary for users. It's that Anthropic got Opus 4.6 ripped off so hard by MiniMax that they no longer want to expose true thinking tokens to random developers. If you're one of the blessed class, you can still get real thinking tokens, but you need to be a major enterprise customer, like the companies that they gave Mythos access.
weird-eye-issue 6mo ago
To prevent abuse? It's a completely free endpoint so I don't understand your complaint.
- tethys 6mo ago
  It may be free, but it cannot be used without credits. Error: {"type":"error","error":{"type":"invalid_request_error","message":"Your credit balance is too low to access the Anthropic API. Please go to Plans & Billing to upgrade or purchase credits."},"request_id":"req_011CaGaBf6uTHfbmdZ39nx1Z"}
  - weird-eye-issue 6mo ago
    Again it is to help prevent abuse I don't really see how this is a valid concern? Tokenization is actually fairly CPU intensive

simonw 6mo ago

I'd love it if that API (which I do not believe Anthropic charge anything for) worked without an API key.

kouteiheika 6mo ago

I'd guess it's because they don't want people to reverse engineer it. Note that they're the only provider which doesn't make their tokenizer available offline as a library (i.e. the only provider whose tokenizer is secret).

stingraycharles 6mo ago
Anthropic is somewhat becoming the Apple of AI in terms of closed ecosystem. Not saying I blame them, I just don't like it as a customer. The fact that it's impossible to get the actual thinking tokens anymore, but we have to do with a rewritten summary, is extremely off-putting. I understand that it's necessary for users, but when writing agentic applications yourself, it's super annoying not to have the actual reasoning of the agent to understand failure modes.
- aftbit 6mo ago
  It's _not_ that it's necessary for users. It's that Anthropic got Opus 4.6 ripped off so hard by MiniMax that they no longer want to expose true thinking tokens to random developers. If you're one of the blessed class, you can still get real thinking tokens, but you need to be a major enterprise customer, like the companies that they gave Mythos access.

weird-eye-issue 6mo ago

To prevent abuse? It's a completely free endpoint so I don't understand your complaint.

tethys 6mo ago
It may be free, but it cannot be used without credits. Error: {"type":"error","error":{"type":"invalid_request_error","message":"Your credit balance is too low to access the Anthropic API. Please go to Plans & Billing to upgrade or purchase credits."},"request_id":"req_011CaGaBf6uTHfbmdZ39nx1Z"}
- weird-eye-issue 6mo ago
  Again it is to help prevent abuse I don't really see how this is a valid concern? Tokenization is actually fairly CPU intensive