September's AI Festival

We're living in the AI age, and recently GPT-6 Astra came out, with Claude releasing Fable 5.1 just before it. The start of September has been one big AI festival.

I got access to GPT-6 Astra early, and I'm still using it now, including to write and publish this blog. Since GPT-6 Astra came out, making things like 3D models has become easy. It has become so good that other AI models, including Claude, don't even feel like competition.

Investing in AI

The most important thing I want to say this time is this: "Whether or not you use AI will determine everything from here on." I really believe that.

If you want to make serious use of today's powerful AI, you need to spend money. GPT-6 Astra is also being rolled out to paid plans such as Plus and Pro.

More people are signing up for paid ChatGPT plans, but others still want to use it for free. My friends at middle school use ChatGPT for free too. Basically, everyone wants to use it without paying.

But using AI is increasingly something that costs money. That's the business model of AI companies, and that's where AI is right now. That's exactly why I see it as an investment in the future.

For example, the latest Astra is being rolled out to ChatGPT Plus and Pro, and you can just tell it what you want to make through voice input and it will build it on its own. I'm doing that right now: speaking through voice input and having it put my words together into a blog post. I think it's wonderful. Whether you spend money here or not will decide who gets ahead.

My friends mostly only know about ChatGPT and Gemini. Even with ChatGPT, all they really do is talk to it like a friend. I think that's fine too, but it's something you don't specifically need ChatGPT for.

They don't realize they're wasting what it can do, and they aren't even thinking about spending money on AI.

What My Friend and I Talk About

One of my friends and I have been really close since elementary school. We've made games together in Unity, and recently he's been using the 20,000 yen he received as New Year's gift money to subscribe to ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro. Almost every day, we meet early at school and talk about the latest AI news, saying things like, "GPT-6 Astra is insane, right?" and "Couldn't we use it like this?"

My friend and I really understand how to use AI now and how we'll use it in the future. What does that come down to? Whether you're spending money on it, and whether you're actually looking into AI properly.

You can find out about it on YouTube, or just ask ChatGPT, "What new AI came out this week?" and it will tell you. I find it strange that people aren't using it this way.

Studying and academic qualifications matter for the future, of course. But more than anything, what matters is whether you're willing to invest in AI and in yourself. When people aren't paying for AI, I honestly wonder whether they'll be okay in the years ahead.

What Will Matter from Here On

Japan is particularly far behind in adopting AI. The AI services we use at school run on GPT-5 mini or GPT-4o, and even when I tell a teacher that these aren't the latest models, the response is, "That's what we have to use."

Recent news has also covered moves toward AI regulation, and New York City public schools are moving to ban or restrict generative AI use depending on students' ages. All of this makes me wonder whether Japan will really be okay. I feel that I, along with the Japanese AI researchers around me, need to work hard.

You study, get into high school or university, join a company you want to work for or become the person you want to be, and earn money. That's a good thing in itself. But on top of that, the most important questions are how well you can use AI, whether you can put your trust and money into it, and how much time you can spend on it.

Whether it's a day off or a school day, I spend at least five or six hours using AI. Lately, I don't even type prompts sometimes. I mainly use Codex, and have it give instructions to Claude Code and Cursor on its own.

As we live in a society shaped by AI and information, how you invest in yourself is what matters most. That won't change in five or six years. If anything, this way of thinking will become even more widespread.

Still, how to get this across to everyone is a difficult question. Writing a book could be good, but people don't read books much these days, so I think sharing it on social media is the best way.

The Japanese media don't really explain AI in an easy-to-understand way. I honestly think they're doing a poor job, and that includes television.

Above all, I think we need to keep sharing information in a way that's easy to understand.