# Utility-Aware Data Pricing: Token-Level Quality and Empirical Training Gain for LLMs

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.22893 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22893/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 16 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Apr 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.08361/) (2020)
- [Training Compute-Optimal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.15556/) (2022)
- [Understanding Black-box Predictions via Influence Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.04730/) (2017)
- [Scaling Language Models: Methods, Analysis & Insights from Training Gopher](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.11446/) (2021)
- [Data Shapley: Equitable Valuation of Data for Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02868/) (2019)
- [Estimating Training Data Influence by Tracing Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.08484/) (2020)
- [Selection via Proxy: Efficient Data Selection for Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.11829/) (2019)
- [Towards Efficient Data Valuation Based on the Shapley Value](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.10275/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Computational Challenges in Token Economics: Bridging Economic Theory and AI System Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.17410/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Traditional ``row-count × quality coefficient'' approaches fail to capture the nonlinear utility of data for Large Language Model (LLM) capabilities. We present a utility-aware data valuation framework that moves from static accounting toward utility-based pricing. The framework combines token-level information density and data quality, empirical training contribution estimated by influence functions, proxy models, and Data Shapley values, and cryptographic mechanisms based on hash commitments, Merkle trees, and tamper-evident training ledgers. Preliminary evaluation includes a smoke-scale multi-domain study and a synthetic duplication test. Results show that proxy-based empirical gain achieves strong ranking agreement with proxy-defined realized utility and substantially outperforms row-count and token-count baselines in the tested setting, while the prototype provides a controlled sanity check of the valuation pipeline and its sensitivity to duplication-based manipulation.