Prompt Caching is cache common prompt prefixes to reduce cost and latency. It sits in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-INC-0221, within the Economics family. The core principle: cache common prompt prefixes to reduce cost and latency. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Cache common prompt prefixes to reduce cost and latency.
Plain-English Definition
Cache common prompt prefixes to reduce cost and latency.
Feynman Explanation
Don't pay twice for the same setup.
Core Principle
Cache common prompt prefixes to reduce cost and latency.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Don't pay twice for the same setup.
Examples
- Common system prompts cached across calls.
- Cost optimization in production deployments.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
This element is common enough to feel like human nature and specific enough to be engineered around. The mechanism underneath it operates in the Incentives dimension — what makes behavior more or less likely?. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: don't pay twice for the same setup. Every element in the Incentives dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, cost optimization in production deployments. It is amplified whenever cost optimization in production deployments. Inside organizations that shows up as cost optimization in production deployments. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to architect for cache reuse. The test of any redesign here is simple: after the change, can you name what the organization is now doing less of? If not, the payoff structure did not actually move.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Architect for cache reuse.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Architect for cache reuse.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
AI investment outpacing measurable productivity gains.
GPU access and pricing shape what's feasible.
Operating economics shaped by per-token pricing.
A handful of providers shape the entire AI economy.
Training is a one-time cost. Inference is forever.
Real cost includes data, ops, monitoring, governance, training.
Malicious instructions hidden in user input or retrieved content.
Written rules about how AI may be used internally.
Innovators → early adopters → majority → laggards, AI-specific.
AI system that takes actions to achieve goals, often across tools.
When the agent acts, who's responsible?
Augmentation strategy vs. substitution strategy.
Where Prompt Caching is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- Field guideIncentives: definition, types, examples
The parent field guide for this element.
- ReferenceThe laws of incentives
Goodhart, Campbell, and the Cobra Effect.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Prompt Caching
- What is Prompt Caching?
- Prompt Caching is cache common prompt prefixes to reduce cost and latency. It sits in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-INC-0221, within the Economics family. The core principle: cache common prompt prefixes to reduce cost and latency. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Prompt Caching?
- Cost optimization in production deployments. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-INC-0221).
- How is Prompt Caching exploited?
- Cost optimization in production deployments.
- How do you design around Prompt Caching?
- Architect for cache reuse.
- Which behavioral dimension does Prompt Caching belong to?
- Prompt Caching is classified in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Economics", class "AI-Behavioral Coupling". Its permanent identifier is HBT-INC-0221 and its evidence grade is C.