AI tokens are mana
Issue 291: Spend them like you mean it
The most formidable experiences that inspired my passion for making software and design was playing computer games in the bedroom growing up on our Gateway 2000 PC. Of many of the games I love and played, Diablo ranked high on the list. Diablo (1996) is a dark fantasy action RPG by Blizzard Entertainment set in the cursed town of Tristram, where you descend through 16 levels of monster-filled dungeon to confront the Lord of Terror himself. It pioneered the loot-driven, click-to-kill gameplay loop that defined the genre. It was very addictive, just like agent orchestration.
You played as one of three classes: the Warrior, a melee bruiser who hit hard but struggled with magic; the Rogue, a nimble archer who sat somewhere in the middle; or the Sorcerer, who was physically fragile but wielded the most devastating spells in the game. Same dungeon, same enemies, completely different relationships with power.
In Diablo, the magical energy system is called mana. The word itself comes from Melanesian and Polynesian cultures, where it described a supernatural force — spiritual power that could reside in people, objects, or places. Not magic in the theatrical sense, but authority and potency earned through existence. RPGs borrowed the concept and made it mechanical: mana is the finite resource that fuels your most powerful abilities. Use it well and you’re unstoppable. Drain it at the wrong moment and you’re defenseless.
Today, making and building with AI tools feels a lot like magic. People can build an app they’ve dreamt of creating for years in a matter of days.
On the All-In Podcast during NVIDIA GTC 2026, Jensen Huang said something that stopped me cold: “If that $500,000 engineer did not consume at least $250,000 worth of tokens, I’m going to be deeply alarmed.”
There are ways to read that.
The first is the drug dealer take. Jensen runs a company whose entire business model depends on you burning compute. Of course he’s alarmed if you’re not spending. The dealer is always going to tell you to do more drugs — that’s not insight, that’s a revenue projection dressed up as wisdom.
The second take is wielding a new power. In Diablo, you can’t master spell casting without burning through a lot of mana. You have to use the Fireball on random enemies to understand what it does and how it’s useful. You can’t development judgment until you understand the material. Jensen may be speaking on behalf of the incentives of NVIDIA’s business, but he’s not wrong.
Now that the mana is loose and AI is here to stay, the focus is on the itnention of casting.
Learn to cast
In Diablo, you don’t buy spells or are handed them. You find them in the dungeon amongst hidden chests, dropped by enemies, and hidden behind doors. You have to look for it and have the Magic stat to read it.
Learning AI is similar. You have all the capabilities within reach, but you must learn how to use them yourself. Learn the skills before using /skills. It’s important to understand what the tools and material actually do before you spell cast like a crazy person. I still think learning to write code matters, perhaps more than ever. You don’t need to memorize every syntax pattern but understanding the abstractions well enough to know when the AI is building you something solid versus something that will collapse on level 12.
This is where I agree with Jensen’s statement. You need to put the reps and practice in, and it’ll take mana. The cost of casting drops as your skills improve.
Knowing when to cast
Situational awareness is what separates a novice spell caster from a dangerous one. In Diablo, a Sorcerer who just found Bone Spirit doesn’t run around casting it on Fallen Ones in the Cathedral. Bone Spirit tracks a target and drains a third of their total HP in a single cast. You save it for the most important moments and toughest battles.
The same intelligence applies to AI. Not every problem is a boss fight.
It’s important to rightsize your tools for what you need to achieve. This was true before AI, but even-more crucial today. Don’t use the Apocalypse spell when a simple Firebolt would do. This applies to model selection and when you may need to use generative tools to achieve an outcome.
The end goal is maximum spell impact. It only comes with enough experience to recognize when mana is the right answer in the first place.
Mana isn’t free
In Diablo, mana feels infinite as you start. You’ve got a full blue bar and a stack of potions. You feel like you can take on the entire dungeon. Then level 10 hits. The enemies get harder, the spells cost more, and suddenly you’re rationing every cast and making uncomfortable tradeoffs.
We’re at that moment with AI.
Tokens felt free because we were returning chat responses for retrieval. Now agents can execute with high autonomy. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel as free anymore. The unit economics are becoming real, and the people building on top of these models are starting to feel it. Every agent loop that spins for five minutes instead of thirty seconds has a higher cost than before
Learn how the supply chain works and where the model companies are incentivized. They are the people who set the price of the raw mana. The second are the application layer companies that take the raw mana and create spells for vendors and customers.
Invisible costs are the most dangerous kind. In Diablo, there is no worse feeling than being in a boss battle only to realized you used too much mana before. Understanding where your tokens go, what they cost at each layer, and what return you’re getting on that spend is becoming a core professional competency.
The blue bar of mana now has a visible bottom.
Know the spell book
Developing skills takes a lot of deliberate practice and usage. In any craft, the beginning of your journey is inefficient. As you understand the capabilities of the materials and tools, you become more efficient.
I’ve burned a lot of tokens myself. Looking back, it feels foolish to use it in such a way. The value of it is I now know the use cases and can design for it; ensuring the efficiency increases.
There are times where I know I won’t cast spells because I love using the broadsword that requires no mana. I’ve found this in writing. Casting mana for a medium that should be my voice. I haven’t achieved great results with agentic writing.
For code, I’m a Sorcerer with a full blue bar and no regrets. I’m going to cast the Hell out of converting things to TypeScript or writing Python code. That is sorcery I never want to touch in my life.
Based on your role, you’ll approach things different. The Product Manager, Marketer, Designer, and Engineer are similar to classes in Diablo. There are certain strengths they’ll have and it depends on what you want to be focusing on that will determine how mana-native you need to be.
Diablo doesn’t end when you run out of mana. It ends when you face the Lord of Terror and you’re not ready. Start practicing.
Hyperlinks + notes
Congrats to Louise Macfadyen on Designing AI Interfaces being available for pre-order!
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