AI’s Hidden Costs: Mastering Context to Avoid Bill Shock and Risky Hallucinations

When AI forgets what matters, it can cost you everything. From the developer blindsided by a $10,000 token bill, to the infamous “Replit Incident” where an AI wiped over 1,200 production records in seconds, these aren’t edge cases, they’re warnings.

Bigger context windows were supposed to fix the problem, but instead, models like GPT-5 still drift, compress away critical details, and send costs spiraling. In this episode, we expose the hidden economics of AI’s “memory,” why more isn’t always better, and how ⁠Coreledger’s Contextus⁠ platform rewrites the rules, delivering scoped, risk-aware context that slashes costs and keeps AI on task.