Overview
- Following Tuesday reports, employees described running unnecessary MeshClaw agents to burn tokens and climb internal dashboards in a practice dubbed tokenmaxxing.
- Amazon says MeshClaw was built by a small team and is used by thousands to automate repetitive tasks, and it told staff that token statistics will not be used in performance reviews.
- The company recently narrowed access to usage data so only employees and their managers can view it, and people familiar with the matter say managers are discouraged from using token counts to judge performance.
- Several employees said leaders track AI activity despite assurances, and some cited safety worries about MeshClaw’s broad permissions to deploy code, manage email, and act in Slack.
- Reports describe similar behavior at Meta and Microsoft, and analysts warn that chasing token totals fits Goodhart’s Law and could distort internal adoption figures that inform costly AI infrastructure plans.