NEWS YOU CAN’T MISS

Is Anime in Trouble?

Japan’s manga and anime industries aren’t your regular side hobbies - they’re pillars of the country’s economy and culture.

Manga (Japanese comic books) alone brings in $4B a year, making up nearly half of Japan’s entire publishing market. Anime is even bigger, generating $19B - much of it from fans outside Japan.

Together, these industries support thousands of artists and studios - and play an integral role as ambassadors of Japanese culture globally.

Now, a survey by the Freelance League of Japan suggests that AI is affecting these creators’ livelihoods:

• 12% of manga artists say their income has fallen over the past year because of AI - some reported losing more than half their earnings.

• Creators say clients are cutting fees, demanding faster deadlines, or canceling commissions entirely - often assuming that AI can do most of the work.

• 90% of respondents feel AI threatens their livelihood - most of them are still choosing not to use the tools themselves.

Beyond income loss, creators are worried about trust and reputation: many report seeing identical works appear online, and are being accused of using AI themselves. 😢

The major issue here is consent: creators want AI companies to be legally required to disclose if copyrighted material was used to train their models. Many support stronger opt-in rules - or outright bans on using creative work without permission.

(Source: Jessica Speed reporting for The Japan Times)

Everyone’s Getting Claude-Pilled

Here’s a hot new term you need to know: getting “Claude-pilled.“

It grows out of a trend that exploded last year called vibe coding. Instead of typing code line by line, people now just say what they want (“build me a website” or “clean up these files”) and AI does the work.

It’s the new norm: 90% of US developers use AI coding tools every day, and estimates suggest 40% of all code written last year came from AI.

Now, Anthropic’s latest AI vibe coding tool (Claude Code) is pushing things into a new gear:

• Unlike earlier tools that needed to be prompted again and again, Claude Code can take a goal and run with it.

• It can open files, browse the web, edit documents, and chain tasks together on its own.

• Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke used it to build a software to analyze his own MRI - while one CTO said Claude helped him complete a complex project in a week instead of a year.

That rush - when you hand over your work and realize AI can handle it start to finish - is what users now call getting “Claude-pilled.”

It’s not just engineers: most users are founders, designers, or curious non-coders doing things they couldn’t before - building apps, automating emails, and recovering corrupted photos from their laptops.

(Source: Bradley Olson reporting for The Wall Street Journal)

Send Your Clone to Work Instead? 😶‍🌫️

Every workday feels like this: five meetings, zero progress, and at least one call that could have been an email.

What if… you didn’t have to show up at all? 😶‍🌫️

A new AI tool called MyPersonas can create a digital version of you (complete with your voice, face, and work knowledge) that can attend meetings, answer questions, and talk like you - in 160 different languages.

Your AI clone could sit through updates, handle repetitive questions, and keep things moving while the real you does something more meaningful... like actual work. 😎