Scaling agent swarms 10x yields only 3-5x the gain of 10x more tokens for one agent
tobyordoxford · x · 2026-09-22
Toby Ord estimates that scaling a swarm by 10x delivers only 10^λ — about 3x to 5x — of the performance gain from using 10x more tokens with a single agent. With λ estimated, one can convert between swarm scaling and scaling thinking duration, suggesting extending a single agent's thinking is far more efficient than adding agents.
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